


Wind of Change / I Found

by Jean_theGuardian



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Betrayal, Gen, Heel Bayley | Davina Rose, Wrestling Stable: 4HW | The Four Horsewomen, sasha banks / becky lynch friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:55:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 31,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26403058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jean_theGuardian/pseuds/Jean_theGuardian
Summary: Summary: Post Smackdown, 9-4-2020. Sasha lays broken, scared and alone after Bayley's violent betrayal. But an old friend from the past shows her that perhaps she's not as alone as she thinks.
Relationships: Sasha Banks & Bayley | Davina Rose, Sasha Banks & Becky Lynch | Rebecca Knox
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20





	1. Chapter 1

** Wind of Change / I Found **

**By Jean-theGuardian**

_I'll use you as a warning sign_

_That if you talk enough sense then you'll lose your mind_

_And I'll use you as a focal point_

_So I don't lose sight of what I want_

_And I've moved further than I thought I could_

_But I missed you more than I thought I would_

_And I'll use you as a warning sign_

_That if you talk enough sense then you'll lose your mind_

_And I found love where it wasn't supposed to be_

_Right in front of me_

_Talk some sense to me_

_And I found love where it wasn't supposed to be_

_Right in front of me_

_Talk some sense to me_

**\- “I Found”, Amber Run**

* * *

**Orlando, Florida, Sept. 4,**

**Friday Night Smackdown**

**The Thunderdome**

* * *

_I can’t...breathe..._

That was the first terrified, confused thought that rang in Sasha Banks’ mind as she briefly emerged from the glaze of unconsciousness, an oxygen mask clamped onto her mouth and nose as the sirens of the ambulance echoed in her ears, the EMTs frantically hovering over her.

For a moment in the haze of bewilderment, fear and unbelievably excruciating pain, she wondered if this was some sort of nightmare.

Some bad, late-night taco-induced dream that she was going to wake up from at any moment. That the electronic pings and sounds of the medical instruments inside the ambulance would be replaced with the sound of an alarm clock ringing in her ears. That she would be waking up in her hotel bed and all would be right with the world...or as well as it could be in a world where a raging pandemic made it so that one couldn’t go to a grocery store without a mask attached to one’s face. That it would be Friday morning and Bayley... _Bayley,_ the name echoed in her mind like a painful funeral gong...would still be her best friend. That they would still have a tag team title rematch with Shayna Baszler and that clumsy oaf Nia Jax. That what had just...happened...was only a bad dream.

But as the mind-shattering pain flared through her injured neck and numbness stung at her fingertips and her all-but-crushed left knee, Sasha, whose eyelids kept fluttering open and closed like a wounded butterfly, knew that what had happened to her was all too real…

* * *

_She remembered the helpful, trusting look on Bayley’s face, a look she had seen so many times over the years, as she helped Sasha try to leave the ring under her own power. Her left knee was throbbing, and Sasha knew immediately something wasn’t right with it. It hurt to put any pressure on it, and she could barely walk thanks to that damned Shayna Baszler. But hell would freeze over before Sasha would allow herself to be carried out on a stretcher at Shayna’s expense, yet another victim to add to the collection of broken women that the former MMA star had maimed since coming into the company. Nobody made Sasha Banks a notch on their belt, that much the proud multi-time champion was determined to see to._

_The physical pain she was in paled only to the emotional, competitive pain she felt throbbing in her psyche. Yet another loss. Another missed chance at a championship. In what had been the worst two week stretch of her entire career, she went from being the Raw Women’s Champion for the fifth time and half of the WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions, from being The Boss, 2 Beltz Banks, back to being...nothing. The same nothing that she had been since the last time she briefly held tag titles last year only to lose it at Wrestlemania while her fellow Horsewomen Becky Lynch and Charlotte were making history headlining Wrestlemania while Sasha was forced to watch someone else live one of her dream matches. She thought that time away, a new hair color and a more vicious attitude would be enough to change her fortunes and for a little while, it was working. Three weeks ago, she and her best friend were living the dream. They had all the gold, and Sasha finally felt like she had regained her stride, got her swagger back. That she was “The Legit Boss” once more…_

_...and just like that, it had all disappeared. Again. Losing, submitting to Asuka twice. Bye-bye, Raw Women’s Championship. Then losing to Shayna and Nia, NIA, of all people. Twice. The humiliation of those losses was overwhelming and Sasha could barely hold back the tears as she slowly rolled towards the ring mat to leave. She had bet the bank on this ‘new look, new me’ attitude that she could come up with a winning hand for once...but if she couldn’t win even with changing herself, then could she win at all? Where could she go from here? What was she missing? Why did this keep happening to her?_

_Sasha felt the tears forming in her eyes again, and she blinked them back furiously. She wouldn’t give the haters and her enemies in the back the pleasure of seeing her cry on camera again. She had her pride. And, allowing herself a sigh of relief, at least she still had Bayley. Sure, they had been feeling a little...volatile, unstable...as of late, and deep down, Sasha was wondering if she was getting the raw end of the deal in this friendship/partnership with her fellow Golden Role Model, but Sasha knew that she was lucky to have a friend like Bayley in her life. They had always been there for each other since Day 1 at the Performance Center when they were just a couple of girls with some indy cred to their name looking to make a name for themselves. Someone she could alway count on. Someone whose shoulder she could always lean on and whose eyes would always watch her back. Sure, they had fought and bickered...a lot...through the last few months and years, but sisters fight all the time, is what Sasha told herself. It was because they cared so much about one another and they were so alike in their passionate emotions, wearing their hearts on their sleeve, that Sasha felt Bayley was the one who understood her the most. Even with Bayley’s friendship with Carmella and the tight bond Sasha had with Becky, it always came back to those two. Sasha and Bayley. It was them versus the world, and Sasha knew that as long as Bayley was by her side, it was all going to be okay…_

_WHAM!_

_So lost in her thoughts was Sasha that she had no time to see the boot that savagely struck her in the side of the head so hard it sent her down to the mat again, coughing violently. But it wasn’t just any boot._

_It was a boot that belonged to Bayley. Her best friend._

_What happened next would be seared like a burn wound into Sasha’s memory forever._

_She would remember being thrown out of the ring and onto the outside floor by Bayley. She would remember Bayley throwing her violently against the steel steps, her exhausted and pain-wracked body screaming in pain. She would remember Bayley using those steel steps against her wounded leg, stomping on the injured appendage with hard, remorseless stomps, trying to make sure her leg was broken if it already wasn’t._

_And then, as Sasha desperately crawled to the ring barrier for support, she saw Bayley’s eyes._

_Those same brown, dark eyes that were always so full of warmth and love, of kindness, that would light up whenever Sasha told her a joke, would fill with sympathy whenever Sasha felt lonely or sad and needed a hug._

_Now...they scared the hell out of Sasha._

_Where there was once warmth, a cold, empty void resided in them. No trace of empathy, nor warmth or kindness. All there was now was...rage. Disdain. And something vicious, violent...something downright evil. Never in a million years did Sasha dream she would ever see that kind of malevolent gaze in the eyes of sweet, kind Bayley, even with all the changes she had undergone...and certainly not gazing Sasha’s way._

_But she was. And as she saw the chilling, murderous look in the eyes of her “best friend”, for the first time in a long time, Sasha was truly afraid._

_“B...Bayley?” Sasha could barely recognize the small, weak, timid voice in her ears, as her own. She said that name with almost a childlike innocence, as if she couldn’t understand why her best friend...someone she loved like a sister...was doing this to her. Hurting her. Causing her pain._

_But Bayley stared at her silently, remorselessly, like a hunter eying its wounded prey after taking it down with a perfect paralyzing rifle shot. Closing in for the kill._

_Wounded, hurting and bewildered, Sasha pathetically tried to cover up, but Bayley would have none of it, grabbing Sasha and launching her back into the ring barriers, slamming her head on the mat and throwing her back in the ring. Sasha tried to get up, to stand, to do something, but her leg was too wounded. She could barely move, and an icy wave of fear and helplessness washed over her. She was completely at Bayley’s mercy, and there was nothing that she could do about it...never in a million years did Sasha ever think she would be able to put those words into a sentence._

_Before Sasha knew it, a strong hand clamped around her throat, squeezing tight around her windpipe and making it terrifyingly hard to breath for a moment before she felt herself being thrown into the turnbuckle, Bayley viciously stomping and kicking her face, ribs, chest, hip and her damaged left knee._

_“Bayley, please stop... **please**!” a dazed, pain-wracked Sasha uttered somewhere in the middle of those blows, but to no avail. Bayley was on a mission, and that mission was to hurt her. _

_The last stomp on her knee was so hard Sasha cried out in agony, feeling the tears begin welling up again as she slapped the mat in pain._

_She remembered being dragged helplessly towards the other side of the ring, Bayley viciously slamming her head repeatedly against the unforgiving mat once, twice, three times, straddling the small of her back and reigning down fists on the back of her head while shouting tauntingly to Michael Cole, “Is it Boss Time NOW, Michael? Huh? **IS IT BOSS TIME NOW??** ” _

_Sasha felt her scalp burn as Bayley snatched her up with a fist full of hair and roughly grabbed Sasha’s beautiful face, pulling her up just enough so she could see the furious, yet icy look in the eyes of her surrogate little sister._

_Through her clenched eyes and the sting and burning sensations screaming all over her body, Sasha felt the tears finally fall as she tried to make sense of this madness, this horrific nightmare._

_“...Why?...Please...why, Bayley?” Sasha cried softly, the agony she felt extending from her body all the way down into her heart and soul as she begged the woman she had considered closer than family, someone she loved so much, for a reason, an explanation for betraying her. Wounding her. Sending her into this abysmal pit of nightmarish hell._

_Bayley’s cruel, loud words offered Sasha no explanation or solace. “You deserve all of this! **ALL OF THIS**!” _

_She felt Bayley grab her wounded leg and snap into it again, and Sasha heard a loud ‘POP’ inside her knee, feeling uncomfortably warm before she shrieked in pain and grabbed it, clutched at it. Sasha was certain something had torn or snapped or something, and she knew almost immediately that whatever it was would likely end up causing her to miss time on injured reserve. Again. After all that work to come back stronger than ever last year...it was all gone now. And of all people, it was Bayley, BAYLEY, who had done this to her. Her own best friend._

_But as she rolled in pain on the mat, she didn’t have time to come to grips with that awful realization before Bayley slid back into the ring with a steel chair in hand and a menacing gleam in her eyes. Sasha’s eyes widened and she panicked before Bayley forced her wounded left leg in between the chair, the blue-haired beauty flailing wildly to try and stop her but to no avail as Bayley kept her foot pressed hard on the chair, trapping Sasha’s leg inside it._

_“Say goodbye to that ACL, Sash! You always said you wanted more vacation time, right? Isn’t that what you wanted?” Bayley taunted her, that awful look in her eyes again, smiling sadistically._

_“ **NO**!” a fearful Sasha shouted back, shaking her head. _

_“No? Too bad, Sash...because you’re going on vacation anyway,” Bayley sneered. “The kind you don’t come back fr--OOPH!”_

_But Sasha was determined not to go out like this. Taking advantage of Bayley’s long-winded taunting and a surge of adrenaline that shot through her, Sasha’s one healthy, shapely leg shot out and caught a surprised Bayley right in the stomach, doubling her over in pain. Then shot out again, the next kick even harder and knocking Bayley away and sprawling to her knees._

_Gasping in relief, Sasha kicked the chair off her wounded leg and tried to stand, only for her leg to flare wildly in pain, grounding her effectively. She couldn’t fight Bayley, she knew that. She didn’t have the energy after carrying the last half of the match battling Nia and Shayna mostly herself, and she couldn’t even stand up. Her only hope was to try and crawl out of the ring, to get as much space between her and Bayley as possible. Live to fight another day…._

_**POW**!_

_And then she felt Bayley’s knee come screaming out of nowhere across the side of her head, and suddenly, Sasha felt all of her senses leave her body. She lay sprawled on the mat, completely helpless, her head spinning and her vision fading in and out. The world was spinning out of control around her, and for more reasons than one. She wanted to move, to run, to something, ANYTHING, but she couldn’t. Physically, her body was beginning to shut down. And mentally, any part of her that wasn’t drifting in and out of consciousness was wracked in shock. Shock that of all the people who was doing this to her wasn’t Shayna, or Nia, or Alexa or Charlotte or some NXT girl looking to make a name for herself...it was her best friend._

_It was **Bayley**._

_The thought of it caused a few stray tears to silently fall from her eyes, even as the rest of her body lay prone and useless._

_Sasha prayed, hoped beyond hope that Bayley was done. She couldn’t take any more. Her battered body was spent, her energy depleted._

_But Bayley wasn’t done. She walked over to Sasha and tried to drag her up, only for Sasha to collapse like so much dead weight, the Boston-born Superstar basically senseless. Through the mess of blue hair in her eyes and the wave of pain that threatened to tug her back into the undercurrent of unconsciousness, she could see the look of disgust in Bayley’s eyes as she wiped the sole of her boot across Sasha’s delicate cheek bone, nudging Sasha’s head to the right, as if she was some door mat. The humiliation of the gesture was not lost on Sasha, who winced in pain._

_Suddenly, Sasha felt a rough hand grab a fistful of her electric blue hair and drag her to her knees. She couldn’t support her own body weight, but Bayley’s grip on her head held her upright. And with frightening clarity, Sasha realized what was on the champion’s twisted mind._

_“No...Bayley...don’t…” Sasha pleaded weakly, the words slurring out of her mouth._

_**BAM**!_

_Sasha’s head was driven down with ruthless force into the ground, the beauty from Boston eating a Rose Plant, Bayley’s patented headlock driver, with full force. All the life left Sasha’s body and her limbs went slack. The world went black._

_Somehow, Sasha became dimly aware of her body being limply dragged along the floor, though where she didn’t know. It wasn’t until she felt something cold and hard pressing and wrapping against her throat that she sensed what was around her neck...a steel chair._

_Bayley’s voice cruelly snarled into her ears in a harsh whisper laced with bitterness and a touch of manic-laced spite. “You always did like jewelry, right, Sash? Huh? You like your bling-bling? Well, I’ve got a necklace special, just for you. Because I’m always thinking about you. It’s the last necklace you’re ever going to wear in this ring. I hope you choke on it, you **stupid little bitch**!”_

_Life briefly flaring back into her, Sasha weakly tried to push Bayley away, but Bayley batted her hands away and cruelly squeezed the blades of the chair together briefly around Sasha’s throat, constricting the airflow to her windpipe. Sasha coughed weakly, then felt another wave of black wash over her eyes and she went limp again, motionless and senseless._

**_Somebody please...help me..._ ** _Sasha wanted to say, but the words couldn’t leave her head and make it to her throat. Some part of her mind absently realized that no one was coming. Why would they? Sasha had made too many enemies over the last year. She had betrayed all the allies and friends she once had in a bid to gain the respect and championship prestige that had eluded her for so long. The one person, the one friend she had on this show, in this entire stinking company...was the same woman who had spent the last five minutes beating her down until she could no longer stand._

_Her eyes weakly fluttering open, Sasha could see the looks of horror and shock on the faces of the fans on the LED screens around the “ThunderDome.” Something bad was happening, but she couldn’t see it…but she was certain she was about to feel it. And there was nothing she could do to stop it..._

_**CRACK**!_

_The sound of the chair legs being pushed together by Bayley’s body weight echoed around her, and the most excruciating agony Sasha had ever felt in her life erupted around her neck. Her body reflexively kicked upwards, her neck was flooded with unbearable heat instantly, leaving her body to shiver in shock._

_Her hand briefly came to her now-crushed throat, but breathing became impossible. Sasha’s eyes drifted shut one last time._

_Her broken body rolling to one side, Sasha surrendered to the wave of black that pulled her under and drowned her._

_Darkness._

* * *

_And yet more darkness._

_Sasha had no idea how long she had spent here._

_But she knew she hated it._

_It was cold. And dark. And scary. And lonely._

_So lonely._

_She swam in a sea of inky black, all around her. Her body was weightless. She drifted._

_Drifting aimlessly like a candle in black water, lost and alone, her light dim and fading in the dark..._

* * *

_And yet in the darkness...she could here it._

_Someone calling...calling for her..._

_“Sasha?”_

_"Sasha?"_

_"C'mon, Sasha, you have to come back..."_

_"Please, Sasha..."_

* * *

_"Sasha..."_

_That voice..._

For a moment, Sasha wondered if she was hallucinating. She knew that voice. It belonged to someone she hadn’t spoken to in a long time.

One of the last people she’d ever have expected to be here.

“Sasha.”

Weakly, Sasha opened her eyes.

Becky Lynch.

The Man herself.

An old friend -turned foe-turned friend-turned foe again. Looking at her from above with a look of sympathy.

Sasha’s eyes darted around to take notice of her surroundings. A hospital room.

She was laying prone on a bed. There were tubes in her nose, she could feel them. A heavy brace was around her neck, preventing her from turning her head. Her stylish, sultry ring gear was gone, replaced by a plain white hospital gown. There were machines beeping all around her. Whirring and beeping. Beeping and whirring. She never needed help from anyone. And now...now these machines were helping to keep her alive. Keep her stable.

And through the pain and aches of her body, Sasha felt like she wanted to die. Surely that would be better than Becky seeing her like this.

Straining, Sasha tried to speak, but found only a raspy, scratching sound coming from her mouth. She began coughing immediately, an automatic reflex as her throat was parched, dry as a desert.

And all of a sudden, she remembered it. She remembered all of it. Giving her all in that tag team title rematch. Shayna torturing her knees. Nia’s girth squashing the wind out of her. And then Bayley.... _Bayley_...her betrayal. Every blow. Every taunting word. Every flash of pain. And that evil look in her eyes as she dropped down from above and stomped on that chair that she wrapped around Sasha’s throat...and the pain, the awful pain...

“Woah, woah...easy, babe, _shhh_ ,” Becky said in soothing tones, placing a steady, yet gentle hand on Sasha’s forehead, urging her to keep calm and cease her brief struggles. “Don’t strain yerself. Ye’ve been out for a spell, lass. Just relax. Everything’s okay now.”

Sasha’s breath exhaled heavily from her nostrils, blinking furiously. She felt like she was a prisoner in her own body. And she hated it. Hated all of it.

_“O...kay_?” Sasha blinked again. Was that scratchy, weak little voice her own? A brief flare of panic rose up in her for a moment. What if this was what her voice would always sound like now? Swallowing down that panic, she looked at Becky again. “Is...that...wh-what...this...is?”

Becky gave her a look of sympathy— _Pity_ , a part of Sasha’s mind angrily and defensively hissed—and Sasha hated that, too. Hated looking so weak, so pathetic, in front of someone who, deep down, she had the most respect for out of anyone in the women’s locker room. Aside from Bayley...well, before what happened...Becky was the closest friend she had on the roster. Someone Sasha had also loved like a sister once...before last year. Before Sasha turned her back on her and everyone else for another shot at gold and glory. And she did it so gleefully. Felt perfectly justified, having grown tired of giving her heart, her soul, her passion and sweat and blood and tears in every match only for Becky to emerge out of nowhere and snatch everything that Sasha had coveted. She held the brass ring, while Sasha had continuously seen it slip from her fingers. Sasha had to make that change. She would not spend her prime years in this business being second-best. Not even for her friends.

And now, how the tables had turned, Sasha mused bitterly. Becky was glowing, healthy and pregnant—the visible small bump in her belly where her child lay nestled was showing proudly—and still popular and revered as ever even while she had taken a leave of absence. And Sasha? Was laying in this damned hospital bed, broken in body, heart, and soul.

The Legit Boss. The Blueprint. The standard of the women’s division...left a bruised, crippled mess. Alone in a hospital bed. Not a single friend in the world...

“A damaged larynx. A compressed neck nerve. Three cracked ribs, grade-3 concussion. Severely strained ACL, a severe bone bruise in yer knee. A shit ton of contusions. And internal bleeding that they managed to cease. All things considered? Yeah, this is about as okay as it gets, sweetheart,” Becky replied simply, her hand gently resting on Sasha’s sweat-matted forehead.

The way she described those injuries shocked Sasha to the core. That couldn’t be her body that Becky was talking about. That was somebody who had been involved in a bad car accident. That couldn’t be her. _It can’t be. It just can’t..._

“How...how...long...was...I...out?” Sasha croaked weakly.

Becky’s response was a sad, solemn expression. “Three days. You came in listed as critical, it took them a full day to get you back into stable condition. That damned chair to the throat...the doctors said if that assclown friend of yours Bayley had stomped a little harder or decided to come down from the top rope...you might not have been able to walk again. All in all, you dodged a little bit of a bullet.” She gave the wounded Sasha a sad smile. “Well...mostly.”

Sasha could barely understand it. Of all people, of all the ones that could’ve been here...why was it Becky?

“Why...why are...you...here?” Sasha struggled to form the words in her damaged throat. “Shouldn’t you...be...in...L.A? Picking...out...nursery...colors?”

Becky frowned. And Sasha could see that the flame-haired beauty wasn’t pleased with the sarcasm, no matter how weak and that response. But damn it all, Sasha couldn’t help it. She couldn’t let anyone see her so weak, so vulnerable. Even through all of this, even though her body felt like it had been in a car wreck...she was still Sasha Fucking Banks. Still The Boss. _But are you really, though?_ A cruel voice in the back of her head taunted her. _What kind of Boss lets her best friend stab her in the back and take her out?_

Becky’s mouth formed into a thin line, clearly thinking out her words and holding back her famous fiery temper. “Now, I’m going to chalk that one up to the meds they’ve been putting in yer IV. Because I know I didn’t fly nonstop on a redeye with a bun in the oven to check on you the very second I saw what Bayley did to you just to hear your ungrateful, spoiled ass talking rude to me. Nah, that’s not what’s happening. It’s the meds.”

Sasha could only grunt softly, but winced as she did, the disks in her neck flaring in pain as they punished her for trying to move. Becky’s face softened again, taking pity on her.

“No, sweetheart, just lay back. Don’t hurt yourself further,” Becky said softly, pressing her hand back over Sasha’s forehead. “Sorry about that snap. Pregnant hormones, ya know how that goes.”

That apology, that a pregnant Becky apologized to _her_ , made Sasha feel about two inches tall. And again, she hated it. Sasha felt helpless again, and the feeling made her want to scream, made her want to cry. Why was this happening to her? _God, why did you do this to me?_ _Why_?

Becky must have sensed her vulnerability. She got back on the subject. “I, uh...was watching Smackdown. Wanted to check out the title match.” She gave Sasha a faint smile. “You really put on a show out there. Even on one leg, ye were giving that lummox Nia and that daft plank Shayna the business. Ye have nothing to be ashamed of, darlin’, ye were amazing.”

Sasha could tell that Becky meant it. Really meant it. And somehow...she hated that, too.

“Amazing?” Sasha scoffed, bitterly. Her eyes were glassy, but she willed herself not to cry. She had cried enough on that awful night. “What’s...amazing about...losing? _Again_?”

“Okay, so you had a few bad nights,” Becky shrugged. “It happens to the best of us. We just shrug it off, get back in that ring and keep—”

“Back in...the ring?”

Sasha’s sudden question made Becky stop. Now Sasha could feel the tears begin to well up in her eyes. “Becky...look at me.” Sasha’s breathing hitched, became more erratic. “ _Look_ at me!”

Off Becky’s surprised flinch, Sasha paused. Her lower lip trembled. “Look at...what...what she did to me.” The tears began to fall down her cheeks. “She...she ruined me....”

Those words began to sink into Sasha’s mind, and it terrified her. She hadn’t even seen a doctor yet, and she could already feel that recovering from this would be difficult, maybe even impossible. And even if she could recover, would she be the same? Could she still be the same extraordinary athlete that she was known to be? Would she still be able to fly through the air, to be the graceful, agile whirlwind that took the women’s division by storm? Would she still be able to be the best at a job she wanted since she had been a little girl idolizing her hero Eddie Guerrero? Was this how her career ends? “The Legit Boss” Sasha Banks, the record-setting 5-time Raw women’s champion...broken and thrown to the wayside like a broken doll that nobody wanted to play with anymore?

What happened next surprised her to no end. Becky, leaning over her, lightly brushing the hair back from her forehead. Tenderly. Sweetly...lovingly. The same Becky who was always there for her at the beginning. The same Becky who was like a big sister to her. The same one who she had stabbed in the back last year, who she abandoned, who she insulted, called out, who she came to vicious blows with last year inside Hell in a Cell over a championship…

...the only one who was here for her now. At the lowest, scariest, most frightening time of her life.

“I am. I’m looking right at ye, darlin’.” Becky’s smile was warm. Inviting. Soothing. “Trust me...I _know_ you. This isn’t the end of you. If Bayley thinks she’s finished you for good...she doesn’t know the Sasha Banks I know.”

Sasha felt the tears come again. Her heart moved. She didn’t deserve Becky’s kindness, she knew that...yet here she was. “Why...why are you...here, Bex?”

The soft, understanding smile never left Becky’s face. “ _You’re_ here...where else would I be?”

All traces of “The Man”, the brash, hard-nosed, tough-as-nails badass with the nasty right hook were gone...and all there was was just Becky.

And off that subtle gesture, all traces of “The Legit Boss”, the cocky, hustling, too-hot-to-handle stunner with the scorching body and the ice-cold roundhouse kick faded away...and all there was left was just Sasha.

Sasha and Becky. Becky and Sasha. Team B.A.E...two friends. Two sisters.

It hurt to talk, but Sasha couldn’t stop the words that bubbled out of her mouth...out of her soul. “I...I...missed...you.”

Now it was Becky’s turn to get misty-eyed. “Yeah...I missed you, too.”

Becky slowly reached out one hand, gently squeezing Sasha’s soft hand in hers. The gesture, so simple, yet so loving, so kind...undid Sasha completely. She felt her walls crumble, her guard let down, and the tears flowed from her eyes like rain.

And as sobs of grief, of fear and loneliness left her, shaking her small, perfect little body, Becky wordlessly threw an arm over her, holding her in comfort.

That’s what families did for each other.

Through the thick, the thin, the good, the bad.

They would always be there for one another.

==


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

**Sept. 11**

**Orlando Regional Medical Center**

2 a.m.

* * *

Becky sighed as she watched Sasha sleep in her hospital bed. It wasn’t a restful sleep. They never were, it seemed. Not since this hell began.

Becky stroked the sleeping woman’s electric blue hair softly, comforting her as she slept. It amazed Becky after all these years that even with no makeup, pale as a ghost and with more tubes in her than a car engine on repair, that Sasha was still one of the most beautiful women she had ever met.

It had become a frequent occurrence for the last few days. Becky would stay all through visiting hours, then bid Sasha goodnight with a peck on the forehead when she was sure she was asleep before the flame-haired femme fatale walked out of the hospital and stayed at a nearby hotel. Every time, Sasha would look at her with wide, glassy eyes and ask her, plead with her to stay. To not leave her alone. Alone to face the string of nightmares Sasha had been having since one week ago. Since Bayley. Since “The Betrayal.” And it got Becky every time. Seeing the girl she’d known all these years, seeing the bold and daring Sasha Banks, always so brave, so strong, now looking lost and scared like a frightened child abandoned in a shopping mall...it was so damn sad that Becky had to swallow hard, promise her that she would speak to the hospital about letting her stay overnight until they could discharge Sasha. Assure Sasha that she would be right back in the morning, and to call her at any time if she needed something, no matter how late.

Sasha’s family couldn’t make it down because of the pandemic. Nobody else from the company had bothered to visit her in person. _Too many enemies over the last year, too many burned bridges,_ Becky rationalized silently; she wouldn’t dare say that aloud to Sasha, the poor thing was suffering enough. And thus far, only a few calls from Talent Relations had come in to check on her. When Sasha would let it go to voicemail, they started to blow up Becky’s cell after they realized she was the only one close enough to Sasha to send an update.

For better or worse...she was all Sasha had now, Becky realized. She hated that such a burden had fallen on her. Part of her silently wondered what the hell she was even doing here in the first place. There was still a little part of her that was furious with Sasha after all the crap that happened between them last year. Becky put on the tough, cocky, I-don’t-give-a-damn smirk for the world and for Sasha when the cameras were on during that time, but deep down, in the parts that the camera and fans couldn’t see...Becky was hurt by what Sasha did.

When the two of them arrived in the performance center all those years ago, Sasha and Bayley were nearly instantly drawn to each other. Becky could see the passion that this pretty, but shy and tiny little wide-eyed girl from Boston had for the business, and had followed what she had done in the indy circuit before then. And she liked to think that Sasha had seen the same thing in her, especially after Becky confided to her all the odd jobs she had taken in the past years to keep her dreams of being a wrestler alive. The two were fast friends, the camaraderie and respect between them coming so easily it was as if they had known each other their entire lives. Becky had come to see Sasha as kind of a little sister, someone she cared for, wanted to take under her wing and protect. They had been having a somewhat off-and-on friendship in their last years at NXT, teaming up as inseparable friends as part of Team B.A.E. (Best At Everything) one minute and tearing each other apart as bitter rivals over the NXT Women’s Championship the next. Then there was their tense partnership heading into Wrestlemania 32 when they both sought the Raw Women’s Championship, held by Charlotte during one of her most insufferable periods.

But some time after they had been drafted to separate brands, they had slowly started to rekindle their friendship. They would eat together in catering. Text each other when the other had a great match. For a little while, they would travel together during overseas tours, renting a car, throwing Bayley—the “runt” of the group, as they affectionately nicknamed her—in the backseat and exploring the world, staying up all night, sharing their secrets over wine, laughter and tears in hotel rooms and restaurants, hugging each other backstage after finishing killer matches that they knew were the best on the whole damn tour…it was simple back then. Happy. Becky felt like a part of her that was missing had slowly slipped back in place, and she had begun to feel whole again for the first time in a while. She had her little sister back…

...so it felt like a stab in the back that went right through her heart when Sasha turned her back on her upon her return last year. She remembered those brutal steel chair shots she took from Sasha, all the blows she suffered, the taunting, cruel words this new, cold-hearted, blue-haired Sasha practically spat into her ear: “ _Where’s your balls NOW, Becky? HUH??_ ” And she remembered the fury she felt when she saw what at the time she thought was Sasha corrupting “sweet little” Bayley. How Becky thought Sasha had been whispering in the ear of her so-called best friend to swear off the hugs and the smiles and the love of the little kids that looked up to Bayley, adopt a more vicious and arrogant streak and go for respect and glory, to go for the throat if she wanted to finally beat Charlotte and defend that Smackdown women’s championship Bayley was so proud of. Part of Becky understood Bayley’s decision to a point—after all, the arrogant, stuck-up Barbie doll that was her former best friend Charlotte had a way of bringing out the worst in people, Becky mused bitterly, and nobody knew that better than Becky herself. But to think that it was Sasha, someone Becky once trusted and loved, that convinced Bayley to turn her back on the people who supported her, including Becky herself...the thought of it made Becky’s Irish blood boil in rage at the time.

Becky remembered how personal their feud got, how brutal, the evil-intentioned look inside Sasha’s eyes inside their Hell in A Cell match as her once-little sister tried as hard as she could to maim Becky, to hurt her, to send her to the hospital. But she would also remember one thing, one key thing that she had always filed away in her head. Sasha had plenty of chances inside that cell to not just hurt Becky, but hurt her permanently. End her career. Throw her off the mountain forever so that she’d never climb back to its summitv ever again.

But when the moments came and Becky could only watch helplessly as Sasha could have delivered the fatal blows...something in Sasha’s beautiful brown eyes softened. Something, some spark of...decency? Friendship? Love?...held her back. It was faint, invisible to the common eye, but to Becky, in those moments, she didn’t see the cocky, self-absorbed, vicious smokeshow that was “The Blueprint”...she saw the real Sasha. Her little sis. The same girl who used to share her fries off her plate with her in catering at NXT, who she would help plant water balloon pranks on incoming recruits and stuffy backstage producers for kicks and double over with in hysterics about it together. There was the hint of that girl Becky knew and cared for so much. And she just couldn’t bring herself to hurt Becky that way. To go for the throat and leave her for dead. So when she saw Sasha standing on the ramp in tears after losing the match, staring right at her, when their eyes locked, Becky held out some hope, some flicker of something that through the heat of competition, it would be enough to bring the real Sasha back. To shake her out of this cruel metamorphosis and her little sister would be back once more…

...but alas, it was not to be. Sasha had only seemed to grow worse as the months had dragged on, with Bayley by her side, Sasha seemingly taking a backseat role to a girl who, frankly, Becky felt should have been Sasha’s sidekick. Even as she watched from Raw, part of Becky wondered what had come over Sasha. If she had lost so much confidence in herself that she would settle for being a lackey...or if Sasha was biding her time until it was right to make a move on that title Bayley had to take herself. Becky didn’t know...and by that time, she no longer cared to be that involved in Sasha’s affairs. They hadn’t texted or talked in months by that time, not since Becky was trying to convince a depressed Sasha over chats and Facetimes and phone calls to come back to the company following her self-imposed hiatus from WWE after Wrestlemania 35. Becky was tired of looking out for Sasha when she clearly didn’t want to be looked after. Becky had her own problems and her own responsibilities as the top female in the company and Raw’s women’s champion; she didn’t need to add Sasha’s problems to her own when her old friend didn’t want help. And Becky kept that attitude right through when she took her own leave of absence upon becoming pregnant. With a child on the way, everything that involved wrestling came a distant second for Becky now. Especially Sasha.

But everything changed one week ago. There she was, sitting at home in LA watching Smackdown, watching the tag team title rematch Sasha and Bayley had against Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler. If she had to be honest with herself, Becky frankly had no love for Bayley, she had nothing but disgust for that shovel-faced dope Shayna after their battles this year, and she had a particular disdain for that clumsy oaf Nia for breaking her face almost two years ago. But Sasha...something about the way she had been fighting the last few weeks had begun tugging at her heart strings. Despite everything that had happened, Becky found herself enraptured by how much skill, how much heart, how much determination Sasha was showing in these championship matches, even though she had been losing them back-to-back over the last few weeks. Becky saw that spark of passion in Sasha’s eyes, that flicker of courage, of the ability to rise above her limitations and do the impossible, and damn it all, Becky found herself silently rooting for her. All through the match, Becky was moved almost to tears by how hard Sasha had fought the last half of that match, on injured knees, fighting on with nothing but her instincts and her heart. She smiled to herself as she watched Sasha shove away the medics that tried to tend to her after the match, refusing anyone’s help in getting out of the ring. Proud, strong Sasha... _yeah, that’s the Sasha I know_ , Becky smiled to herself proudly.

But that smile dropped along with her jaw as she saw the unthinkable happen—Bayley viciously kicking Sasha in the head, betraying her “best friend” when she was at her most vulnerable. Through every blow, every pained scream that she saw Sasha take through her TV screen, Becky gasped, felt her hands tremble...and her baby must have felt it, too. A sharp pain rippled through her stomach and for a moment, Becky was terrified that something must’ve happened to her precious baby. Checking herself, she took a deep sigh of relief when she realized her baby was okay.

But that relief didn’t last long. As she saw Bayley picking up a crying, begging Sasha by the hair, screaming venomously, “ _You deserve all of this! ALL OF THIS!_ ”, something snapped in “The Man”.

“Bayley, for God’s sake, _stop it_! _She’s had enough_!” Becky found herself screaming at the television. As she saw Bayley return back into the ring with a steel chair in her hand and an evil gleam in her eyes, Becky found her fists clenching. Felt her heart racing. Felt fear racing through her as Bayley, the “runt” of the 4 Horsewomen, tried to use that chair to snap Sasha’s poor wounded leg in two. Becky found herself cheering and pumping her fist as Sasha managed to kick Bayley away with her one good leg and bring the so-called “Role Model” to her knees as she tried to crawl away...only to wince in horror as Bayley rendered her helpless with that running knee.

And that horror compounded itself into sheer terror when she saw Bayley wrap that chair around an unconscious Sasha’s neck and climb the second turnbuckle. This wasn’t just a beating, Becky realized. This was premeditated. Bayley wasn’t just trying to beat up her partner...she was trying to end Sasha’s career.

Becky felt the tears spring to her eyes, wringing her hands tightly together as she watched the screen. Unable to do anything to help poor Sasha from so far away. “No...Bayley...don’t do this...please, don’t do this...not to Sasha...it’s _Sasha…please..._ don’t _do_ this...” She said those words in a hushed quiet plea, as if hoping by some miracle her silent prayer would reach Bayley’s heart.

But when she saw the uncaring, psychotic brunette readying to take flight, Becky lost it and felt an angry, fear-laced scream rip from her throat. “ _God damn you_ , _Bayley, **STOP IT , YOU BITCH!**_”

Then she saw the stomp on the chair.

She **_felt_** it.

  
A horrified scream left Becky’s throat as she looked away, her own throat suddenly constricting, as if it had been her own neck in that chair along with Sasha. As if she couldn’t breathe. As she turned her glassy, wide eyes back to the TV, watched the lifeless, broken body of her surrogate little sister roll to its side, her beautiful, unconscious face still stained with tears, Becky felt the tears begin to roll down her own eyes. “Oh, God...oh, God...Sasha…” She whispered those words in grief, in absolute horror at what she had seen. As if she had witnessed an execution with her own eyes. And part of her mind realized that this was essentially what it was.

Taking steady breaths as she watched the next scenes of Sasha being stretchered into an ambulance, Becky had made up her mind right then and there. She needed to find her. Find Sasha. She would need someone. And for reasons that Becky didn’t care to sort out at the time, that someone was going to be her, whether Sasha liked it or not.

She spent the next five hours packing, grabbing the first Uber she could to the airport, and screaming at and berating airline employees as she demanded a ticket to Orlando, the first one and fastest flight they had. The last female, a smug one that seemed to take delight in telling her that her airline had no such flights available for 24 hours, a furious and already-hormonal Becky grabbed by the shirt and threatened to stuff into her suitcase piece by piece before she reluctantly let her go tumbling to the floor in a wide-eyed mess at the sight of security guards nearby. Becky didn’t have time to become a headline, “WWE Star Becky Lynch Arrested at Airport for Beating Up Employee”, not when she had to get to Sasha.

So she called in a favor from Talent Relations and arranged for a private charter flight to fly her towards Orlando. She was in the air two hours later and in the hospital by early Saturday.

It was so surreal seeing Sasha the first time in that hospital bed. Sleeping, alone, a brace on her neck, all those tubes and things stuck in her. The Sasha she knew was always so full of life, so full of passion and beauty. A smile that could light up a day, a sense of humor that was secretly just as silly as Becky’s own. She was always moving, so full of grace, moving so nimbly and fluidly it was as if she was water. And now...now she looked so pale, so helpless, so lonely, so small in that hospital bed, and for reasons Becky had yet to place, it made her scared. And sad. And angry.

For a moment, hell, for many moments since, Becky wished she had waited just a little longer to get pregnant, so she could still be in fighting shape. So that she would be on the first cab to Smackdown. To find Bayley.

She visualized it.

Over and over again.

Driving to the Thunderdome.

Shoving aside the security guard and throwing the door wide open as she stepped into the building.

Finding Bayley, probably bragging in the ring or in the back about what she did to Sasha, attacking her “best friend” when she was tired, spent, and injured, when she was most vulnerable, like a hyena or a jackal and claiming to be some kind of badass for it.

Closing in on her, a stupid, shocked look in those dopey brown eyes of hers at the sight of “The Man” coming to collect on behalf of Sasha.

Launching herself at Bayley like a lion at its dinner and beating every single square inch of that little twerp with that same steel chair she attacked Sasha with. Throwing her into anything she could find, from concrete pillars to steel doors to plate glass windows, hearing the wet smack of her body and bones against them and it being music to Becky’s ears.

Hitting Bayley with fist after fist, kicking and stomping her until the “Golden Role Model” bled crimson from her mouth, her eyes, her ears, her nose, and everywhere else. Feeling her own hands tightening around Bayley’s pencil neck and hearing the cartilage snapping, watching her stupid face turn purple, the veins in her neck throb and those beady little eyes of hers pop open in fear, asking her how it felt to be helpless, to be at somebody’s mercy, like Sasha was. Asking Bayley if it hurt. If Bayley liked it as much as Becky was _loving_ it. Hearing Bayley whine and beg pathetically for mercy between the blows, but showing her none, her pleas only making Becky _madder_ , hitting her even **_harder_** for it just like was done to Sasha. To wrap that fucking chair around Bayley’s _fucking_ throat and not just break her windpipe, but take her whole _fucking HEAD off her stinkin’ shoulders_ …

Taking a deep breath, Becky inhaled and forced herself to relax. She couldn’t get this angry. It wasn’t good for the baby, the doctor told her that. She had to keep it together. It wouldn’t do her, the baby or Sasha any good for her to fly off the handle. So she took a breath and just looked out the window to the evening sky outside.

Taking solace in the beauty of the city below her. She let her thoughts begin to drift, let herself relax, just for a moment…

“...no...no, Bayley...please...please, don’t...Becky...Becky, please...I'm sorry...I'm _sorry_....I’m not dead…I’m not dead, no...don’t bury me...don’t bury me, please...”

A startled Becky turned to see Sasha twisting, turning, shifting restlessly in her sleep. A nightmare. She’d been having so many of them the last few nights.

Becky knew this one, it was one of the first Sasha had in this place. Sasha had confided in her the details. She’d be in the ring on Smackdown again. Bayley would come down on the chair, crushing her throat. And suddenly, she would be standing there, but her own body would be beneath her. Broken, eyes closed. _Lifeless_. And she would watch in horror as all the people she had ever wronged or disappointed, all the powers that be of the company, angry internet fans, would be standing over her corpse giving her a mock eulogy, listing all her failures and shortcomings. Paige, for the incident years ago that resulted in her career being accidentally cut short while wrestling Sasha. Stephanie and Vince McMahon, scolding her for not “fitting the mold” and not being good enough to “grab the brass ring.” Charlotte and Alexa Bliss, taunting Sasha with their hands glittering with shiny rings and golden trinkets, mocking Sasha for her short title reigns and falling short despite her skills. Shayna Baszler, smirking at her and deriding her for being so small and easy to break. One faceless, fat internet fan after another, reigning down words on her like “overrated”, “a mark for herself”, “Botch-a Banks”.

Bayley, her now-former best friend, calling her “useless” and “weak”, claiming she was selfish and self-absorbed, calling her a terrible friend, assusing Sasha of using her.

And worst of all...Becky. Looking at her lifeless body, hurt in her eyes, asking her why Sasha betrayed her. Why she turned her back on her. How Sasha tried to explain herself, tried to apologize through tears in her eyes, only to be drowned out by the voices around her getting louder. And then suddenly, she would be inside a coffin. A glass coffin. She would plead to be let out, pound the lid so hard, and scream so loud that she wasn’t dead, cry so hard for someone, _anyone_ to help her, but to find nobody coming. She would look up to see three figures with veils, shovels in their hands, ready to lay her to rest in the ground. The first veil revealed Bayley, a look of hatred and cruelty in her eyes. The second veil revealed Becky, who looked at her with sadness and disappointment.

And the final veil revealed the most horrifying revelation of all...Sasha herself. Sporting her purple hair instead of blue.

Her own words would haunt her: “ _Remember...you did this to yourself.”_

And then they would begin shoveling the dirt onto her casket as she screamed and begged for them to stop... _burying her alive_ …

Becky remembered biting her lip hard to keep back the tears when Sasha told her the first time. She was coming to terms with everything from her past, Becky knew that. And it would be brutal. And lonely. Edge had warned Becky once when she was on the verge of becoming someone she would have hated after Becky snapped on Charlotte in 2018 after “The Queen” had taken her shot at the Smackdown women’s title. That there would be consequences for becoming too ruthless, for cutting off all her ties to friends and loved ones to chase championship glory. _“The choices you’re making, they will **change** who you are. They will stain your soul. And I’m looking at you, Becky, and I still see a good person in there. I’m going to tell you that the end result of all the choices that you’re making right now, you know how it ends? With you sitting in your home, staring at the championships on the wall, reminiscing about all of your accomplishments...by **yourself**. But Becky, here’s the kicker...you won’t even **like** yourself.”_

Despite mocking him at the time, something about that warning Becky took to heart, and somewhere along the way, she learned to let go of the hate that was driving her, to harness her anger, channel it and make it her weapon instead of letting it make a weapon out of her. And from that, she truly became “The Man”. She wouldn’t let anyone step on her again, but she would never become like Charlotte or Nia or Shayna or Bayley. She didn’t need to step on others to make her mark, she would do it with her own two hands and a “Bring it on, World, I’ll kick yer ass” attitude. But Sasha...Sasha fell way too far. She flew too close to that sun, and she got burned for it. Now it was up to Becky to help heal the wounds and put her back together.

“Sasha...babe...Sasha, wake up, c’mon,” Becky said quietly as she made her way to the stirring and tossing Sasha’s side, the golden caramel skin of her forehead soaking in sweat. “Sasha, wake up, c’mon…”

“...no...I’m not dead... ** _I’M NOT DEAD! NO! STOP! PLEASE, NO!_** ”

Sasha suddenly shot up, screaming hysterically. Becky gripped her slender shoulders tightly, trying to calm her down.

“ _Whoa, whoa, whoa_ , Sash!...Sasha, it’s me...it was just a dream, it’s just me. Everything’s okay, it was just a dream.” Becky said gently, assuringly. Sasha, eyes darting around the room, felt Becky’s warm hands glide to her face, forcing her to look at the Irish beauty in the eyes. 

Trembling, Sasha burrowed herself into Becky’s shoulders, and Becky felt her sobbing quietly, brokenly as her confused mind tried to assure itself that she was in her friend’s arms and not in a casket. Becky sighed, wrapping her arms around Sasha in a reassuring hug, stroking small circles on her back as she comfortingly held her in silence.

“I...I hate this, Bex...I fucking hate this,” Sasha cried softly, and Becky could see in the reflection that her eyes were closed tightly, tears still streaming down her face.

“I know, hon. I know,” Becky replied in hushed, soothing tones. “It’s okay, babe, just let it out…”

“No, it’s not fucking...okay,” Sasha’s voice snarled between tears. “Is...is this all that’s left of me? _Is this what I am now_?” Her voice softened and she sounded once more like a sad, lost little girl. “Is this...what I am?”

“ _No_. No. It’s not who ya are. It will _never_ be who ya are,” Becky assured her, her voice still comforting, but with a hint of steel and resolve. “You’re Sasha Fucking Banks, and don’t you ever let _anyone_ tell you otherwise. _Ever_. I don’t get to define you. Bayley doesn’t get to define you, nor does Vince or Steph or any other plank out in the world. The only one who gets to define Sasha Banks is Sasha Banks, and fook everyone else who tells ya differently. You’re still that same woman.”

“I...She’s gone, Becky. I can’t...I can’t find her…” Sasha wept, sounding so unlike the strong, confident woman—The Boss—that Becky had come to know well through the years. “I can’t find her…”

“I can,” Becky said, pulling back. Looking at Sasha’s red, puffy, wet eyes. Becky smiled faintly at her, her thumb lightly brushing a tear from her eyes. “She’s right here.” And then she pointed right at Sasha’s chest. Right where her heart was. “And right here.”

Off a shaky, watery smile that Sasha gave, Becky’s smile remained, a ghost of a thing, but still there, strong and reassuring. “I know ye’ve got a lot to deal with, and I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but you are strong, Sasha. You’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever met. And you will recover from this. You will. What doesn’t kill you…”

“...makes you stronger,” Sasha finished that sentence softly. Becky saw a flicker of something in Sasha’s eyes as she uttered those words. It was faint, dim...but it was there.

Hope.

Becky smiled again. For she knew this better than anyone—sometimes, the brightest fires can begin with the smallest sparks.

Before she knew it, Sasha burrowed herself back into her arms again. “Becky...thank you. I don’t think I’d be able to do this without you.”

Fighting back tears of her own, Becky merely chuckled, holding her still-healing friend. “Hey...where else would I be?”

They chuckled softly together, and for the first time in a while, both women felt a missing part of themselves fit back into the puzzle of their souls.

* * *

**9:05 p.m.**

* * *

_“… You guys want answers? Well, actually, I’m full of questions right now.”_

The television glowed in the hospital room, and Becky sat there, a glowing fire beginning to burn in her blue eyes as she watched Bayley explain her sickening actions to the world. She turned to see Sasha, sitting upright, stone-faced, as she watched the woman that was once her best friend give the world the explanation that she refused to give Sasha seven days ago when she picked Sasha’s most vulnerable moment to strike. Like a vulture picking off a dying animal in the desert.

Becky could see Sasha gripping the bed sheets tightly, see her lips set in a straight hard line, and Becky knew that there must be a million things going on in her head right now.

“Sash...babe...you don’t have to see this,” Becky suggested, half-heartedly. She knew there was no convincing Sasha otherwise.

“Yes. I do,” Sasha replied simply. Coldly.

Her eyes burned into the TV set.

As if the only thing in the world that she could see was Bayley.

As if nothing and no one else mattered.

_“So, Sasha, I know that you’re watching — do you think I’m some sort of **idiot**?”_

Becky snorted derisively. “She says that like she hasn’t seen herself in the mirror with those stupid haircuts the last five years.”

“ _Becky_ ,” Sasha shushed her. She wanted to hear this. She needed to hear it. Every word.

_“Do you think that I’m so naive after all these years that I didn’t know what you were thinking all along? Seriously, after everything that we’ve been through who knows you better than me? Nobody.”_

Sasha and Becky turned to each other, and Sasha’s wane, thankful smile comforted Becky. Nobody knew her like Bayley? Well, both women in that room knew that wasn’t exactly true. Not anymore.

_“You were waiting for the right time to strike. You kept me close. In my first break in WWE you brought me in as your tag team partner just to keep me close enough, huh? When I had my first Raw women’s championship match you made sure to be right there to be a part of it because you needed me close. You followed me this year to Friday Night SmackDown and when you saw me at the top of my game you needed to become 2 Belts Banks, didn’t you? You pretended to be my best friend, but all along you were just **using** me. And do you know how I know that?”_

Becky scoffed at that revisionist history. Her own first reconciliation with Sasha at that time had coincided with Bayley’s imminent arrival on Raw. And Becky knew for a fact that wasn’t true. The truth was that the higher ups were very skeptical about Bayley being brought up from NXT and had contemplated releasing her. That was why she wasn’t brought up at the same time the other Horsewomen made their debut. There were people in the company who felt Bayley didn’t have “The Look” to be on the main roster like Sasha, Becky and Charlotte had. That Bayley’s gimmick was too child-like and not sexy enough for the 18-49 male demographic. But Sasha, at great risk to her own career, had gone right to Vince and Triple H themselves and pushed for Bayley to be brought up. That she could be a huge asset to their budding women’s division. And Sasha did it solely because Bayley was like a sister to her. Like family. And when Charlotte was primed to make easy pickings of Bayley during her first real title foray, Sasha, not wanting Bayley to fall into the same pitfalls that she had, looked out for Bayley to make sure her friend could succeed where she fell short. Looking out for the runt of their litter yet again, purely out of love. But Becky knew that championship gold had a way of clouding one’s judgement in the company. The lofty status and the extra payday and TV time that came with it could be blinding to one’s sight.

Becky watched Sasha, who sat still, sat coldly, her eyes locked onto the image of Bayley in that screen, who seemed to be looking right back at her.

Taunting her.

Mocking her.

Dancing on the grave of her career.

_“Because **I** was using **YOU**!”_

Anger flooded Becky, and she felt the fire in her eyes crackle and ignite until it was raging. And it was so hot that if Bayley stood right in front of her now, Becky was sure that gaze would have reduced her to a smoking pile of ashes.

But if she was fire, Becky was sure Sasha was ice. For the blue-haired beauty sat there, no makeup, cold as an icicle in the North Pole.

Unreadable.

_“I **never** cared about you, and I **damn** sure didn’t care about our friendship. I **used** you every single step of the way. And thanks to you, I became 2 Belts Banks, huh, 2 Belts Bayley, Bayley Dos Straps, the first ever grand slam women’s champion. And thanks to you, I am the longest reigning SmackDown women’s champion.”_

Becky watched Sasha, that same cold, frigid stare on her pale, but pretty face never leaving her as she watched the woman who tried to take her career away from her, her dream away from her, _everything_ away from her, who stabbed her in the back and left her in this stinking hospital in a broken mess.

_“But after last week...you are completely...USELESS...to me.”_

And as her former best friend walked out of the ring, a remorseless, uncaring smirk on her face, Sasha looked away, her normally warm and dancing brown eyes now glacial.

“Turn it off,” she said softly.

Not wasting a second, Becky flicked a look of disgust at the tiny image of Bayley, hit the power button on the remote and shut off the TV.

Never one to hide her emotions, Becky let the anger play across her face. “You want me to go over there right now and rip her head off? Because I can do that, I can literally just _rip_ —”

“No...no,” Sasha said wearily. “I love ya, Bex, but I’m not having you risk the baby’s life over my problems.”

Becky sighed as she looked at Sasha, her beautiful eyes looking so pensive.

“Penny for your thoughts, luv?” Becky asked tenderly, carefully.

Sasha stared up at the ceiling, and Becky could see how the thoughts were swirling in her eyes.

“Then they’d be about as worthless as my friendship with Bayley was,” Sasha scoffed softly.

She looked at Becky, wistfully. “I must be really stupid, huh?”

“ _Don’t_. Don’t do that to yourself, Sash,” Becky gently scolded. “That was all bullshit. You know it and I know it. That Karen-faced little weirdo hit a couple of singles and she’s suddenly walking around thinking she’s Barry Bonds. She’s fucking delusional.”

“Or maybe I was the deluded one,” Sasha sighed, looking as sad as if someone told her she had lost her beloved dog Ryu.

Becky shook her head at the dejected look in Sasha’s usually confident brown orbs. “Sasha…”

“I thought I....I thought I _knew_ her, Bex. How could I not have _seen_ that? All that anger? All that...rage? How did I not know that was inside her?”  
  


Becky sighed, reaching out and gently squeezing one of Sasha’s soft hands in her own. “Because deep down, Sasha, while few people know it...you’re a good person. I’ve always known that. Even when you were walking around acting like an uber-bitch, I never doubted that. That’s the difference between you and Bayley. You’ve always been a good girl pretending to be bad…”

“Hey...I _am_ bad. The _baddest_ ,” Sasha replied, looking mildly offended, but offering Becky a teasing smile. “And don’t you forget it, Red.”

Becky chuckled. Now that sounded a _little_ more like the Sasha Banks she knew. That was progress. “Right, forgive me, Your Badness. What I mean is, deep down, Sash, no matter how tough you’ve acted or how devious you’d be in the ring, deep down, you’re a good person.”

Becky’s smile faded. “And deep down...Bayley’s not.” Becky sighed. “That’s why I’ve never been as close with Bayley as I was with you or Charlotte. I know you, I can read your emotions like the back of my hand...but Bayley...there was always something a little off about her. Something...phony. I always figured that anybody who put on the ‘happy-smiley-I-wanna-hug-everyone’ gag was either an idiot or a liar, and Bayley never struck me as an idiot. Figured she must’ve been the second one. Charlotte might be a pain in the arse, but good or bad, I always had an idea of where she stood. But you can’t trust a phony. You never know when they’ll stick the knife in yer back.”

She watched as Sasha silently mused on her words. “Like she stuck the knife in mine,” Sasha sighed.

Sasha turned her head, catching a pensive look in Becky’s eyes that made her frown. “What? What’re you giving me that look for?”

“It’s nothing,” Becky said quickly, but unconvincingly. She figured that Sasha had learned how to read her pretty well, too.

“You don’t have ‘Nothing’ face, you have ‘Something’ face. Spill,” Sasha replied, giving her a ghost of a smile, but her eyes clearly expectant.

Becky relented. There was just something she had to know. “Just tell me something...and you be honest with me, because I’ll be able to tell if you’re lying...that stuff that Bayley said. About you using her...waiting to stab her in the back for that belt...is it true?”

Off the surprised, hurt look in Sasha’s wide brown eyes, Becky realized she might have made a mistake. “ _Becky…_!”

“No, no, no, you’re right, you’re right, that was a stupid question…” Becky started to backpedal. But despite the glassy look in Sasha’s wounded eyes and how that ate at her heart, there was a part of Becky that needed to have closure. “It’s just...I know that that belt makes people do funny things. It has a habit of making people act crazy. Just...tell me, Sash. Whatever you say, I swear, I’ll believe you.”

Sasha shook her head. “Bex…it’s not true.” Off Becky’s earnest look, Sasha sighed. “Well...not completely.”

Becky groaned, disappointed. “Aww, _Sasha…_ ” She said it with a tone of disappointment in her voice.

Sasha raised her hand defensively. “It’s...not what you think. I did...want that title...but not like that. I was...I was hoping that I could challenge her for it, straight up. Everyone...they all keep talking about that Takeover Brooklyn match we had years ago.” Sasha smiled wistfully. “It was the best match I’ve ever had. And I was thinking that we could recreate that magic. Together. Give everyone something to...really remember.”

Off that earnest response, Becky believed her. Sasha was always driven, obsessed with her in-ring work. Honestly, it made Becky a little jealous sometimes. She’d never met anyone with Sasha’s drive, her flair for creativity, her ridiculous athleticism, all wrapped into one shapely package. And if she felt like she could improve upon that classic in Brooklyn, Becky knew it was a safe bet that Sasha could and would deliver on such a match.

But that said look in her eyes returned. “I was an idiot. Bayley never cared about stuff like that, I see that now. She...she played me for a sap, and I fell for it. Hook, line and sinker. I was a sucker right from the beginning.”

“You’re talking like she’s won,” Becky groused.

Sasha, despondent, gave her a defeated look. “Hasn’t she?”

“Are you alive?”

“...yes?”

“Then she’s already lost,” Becky replied firmly. Off Sasha’s confused stare, Becky pressed on. “I don’t know what the future holds immediately for ya, darlin’. I can’t tell you how fast you’ll heal, or if you’ll be able to come back the same, or what will happen the next time you see that little plank. But if I know anything about Sasha Banks, it’s this—She ain’t no punk. She might get knocked down, but she never stays down, because _that’s_ a sucker’s game. If you want to, if you really want to, you’ll get her back. You’ll return with fire and vengeance, with style and swagger, and you’ll make that chair-wielding, two-dollar-haircut-sportin’, childish little shit wish she’d never even heard your name, make her pay for even _thinkin’_ she could take your dreams from you. You’ll be makin’ her see you in her nightmares, in her daymares, every time she washes up, every time her heart takes a beat. And then you’ll tear her apart and take back what’s yours.”

Becky leaned in, meeting Sasha’s eyes. “But if you quit on yourself now, then it all dies right here, right now. So you need to dig down deep and ask yourself, Sash—are you a quitter? Or are you Sasha Fucking Banks, The Legit Boss?”

Sasha closed her eyes, and for a moment, Becky wondered if indeed Sasha had had enough, after all. If the old Sasha she’d known was truly gone forever…

...and then Sasha opened her eyes.

And Becky saw it.

That spark. That anger. That fire. That determination. It wasn’t quite what it normally was, but it was still there. Burning deeply in Sasha’s eyes. The woman looking back at her wasn’t the scared, broken little girl plagued by nightmares and failures, broken in body and soul…

...the woman looking back at her was The Boss. The fighter. The Girl Born To Do This.

And Lord help the soul that got in that woman’s way. Particularly a certain so-called “Role Model.”

Becky smiled at her surrogate little sister, knowingly. Proudly. “I thought so. Now rest up and heal. When the time comes...we’ll show that mopheaded moron who’s the useless one...and who’s The Boss.”

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

**Orlando, Florida,**

**Monday, Sept. 14**

**The Thunderdome**

**4:15 p.m. – Just before Raw**

* * *

"You're having doubts."

Bayley couldn't look him in the eyes as she sat in catering, the two of them alone and isolated at the very far end of the room.

In the months beforehand, she had rarely spoken to this man in public. Their discussions would be alone in a dark part of an arena, or via text, or at some secluded diner after hours. None of those discussions were romantic, though Bayley silently to herself that she had always had a crush on this guy growing up. And in person, he was even more handsome. Maybe not Finn Balor-type handsome, but he was a stud nonetheless. But looks weren't what led her to seek the advice of someone that several other people, even friends, had warned her to steer clear of in the last few years. It was because of all people, nobody in the company could understand what was driving her decisions, could possibly guide her to where she wanted to ultimately go, better than him.

"I'm _not_ ," Bayley replied a bit defensively. Off his knowing stare, which she challenged for as long as she could, she ultimately faltered. "Maybe...maybe a little, yeah."

He chuckled mirthlessly. "I hope you're not expecting a _hug_ , kid."

At that, Bayley glared at him. "I left that part of my life in the past. The old hugging, smiley-faced Bayley is dead."

"So what you're saying is...you don't give a hug." He smirked at her with some amusement, proud of his joke.

An irritated Bayley, however, was not amused. "Are you going to keep making fun of my past stupid gimmick, or are you going to actually give me something useful that can _help_ me?"

" _Watch yourself_ , Bayley," his tone got frosty, dangerous, real quick. "I'm not a flunky, I'm not your 'BFF' like Sasha is...well, _was_. And while I've grown rather fond of you and I've enjoyed our little chats over the last few months, I've gotten way past the point of letting _anyone_ speak to me like you are now without them paying a price for it."

Bayley paused, reconsidering her snappish tone. She knew full well that the man across from her was dangerous, and had no qualms about violence, not even towards women. "You're right. I'm sorry, I don't know what I was thinking. It won't happen again...Randy."

Satisfied, Randy Orton smirked. "Better not."

A short, but still pregnant pause passed between them, and Bayley couldn't help but a little intimidated at the intensity in the eyes of The Viper.

"So," Randy began again. "You've finally crossed Sasha off your contacts list... _kudos_ , by the way on how you did it, I never thought you had that kind of violence in you, I was very impressed...and now you're wondering if you did the right thing and what's next."

Bayley swallowed. Sometimes the way this man's cobalt blue eyes pierced right through her chilled her to the bone. It was sometimes like he was staring right into her very soul and she was naked in front of him. It both excited and creeped her out at the same time.

"Yes," she sighed, closing her eyes.

Until last year, until after the draft, Bayley had been on a downward career spiral. Losing matches. Her partner, her so-called "best friend" Sasha had up and left the company without a word for months, abandoning her when she needed a friend, needed support. She felt herself slipping into irrelevance with every passing day. Then one day, at a house show, she spotted Randy in the corner, alone, texting someone. Despite all instincts warning her not to approach him, she did it anyway. She struck up a conversation with him. Maybe he was impressed by her guts, maybe she just amused him...or, maybe he was taken by her beauty, a vain part of Bayley mused and preened silently...but for whatever reason, the Viper had taken a liking to her. And from that moment, the two had struck up an unusual relationship, Orton mentoring and coaching Bayley in private. She would text him before matches, pick his brain in private about upcoming opponents, seek the guidance of the notorious 13-time world champion when it came down to career-altering decisions. And as a result...

"I've been on the roll of my life since I came over to Smackdown last year. I went from being the girl that was too nice to hit that little bitch Alexa Bliss with a cane when she freakin' deserved it, the pushover, the nice girl…to being one of the greatest women's champions this company has ever seen in just one year. Every woman who was ever a threat to me is gone now. Charlotte, gone, injured. Becky, gone, off to be pregnant. Alexa's off making moony-eyed faces at the latest 'Monster of the Week', she's not a threat to me anymore. Nikki's no challenge to me. I've beaten my old buddy Carmella so many times I lost count. Asuka's...off doing whatever it is Asuka does on Raw, maybe dancing like an idiot or whatever. And Sasha...her career is pretty much over now after what I did to her. For the first time in my life, I'm standing alone at the top."

Bayley gave Orton a nod, a hint of gratitude in her eyes. "And that's all because of you, Randy. When nobody else believed in me, you put me on the right path. You showed me the way."

"Hey, that was all you, kid. All I did was give you a little direction and drop a few breadcrumbs for you to follow. The success part? That's all you," Randy said, shrugging as he downed his water bottle. "I just made you realize that you weren't going to get to where you wanted to be in this industry by giving hugs, having those stupid balloon people in your entrance and wasting your time putting smiles on people's faces. How John Cena put up with that shit for a decade without blowing his fucking brains out I'll never understand."

Bayley smirked and had to let out a small giggle at that. In his own brutish way, Orton could be quite charming, she had found.

"But why the doubts?" He probed. "You're getting everything you wanted, aren't you? TV time, the big paycheck, the respect, all the stuff you told me you were aiming for last year. You should be happy, now is the time to smile, maybe strut a little and rub it in everybody's faces. The money coming in okay? Or do you need me to talk to my connections in the office about giving you a little bump in your pay?"

"No, no, it's…good. It's all good, the checks have never been bigger, thanks. It's just...I've never done anything without Sasha in my corner in some way," Bayley admitted to him. Bared the small, tiny part of her that still felt like "just Bayley", still wanted to be loved, still wanted to have friends. Still wanted to have a best friend...like Sasha. "And, as much as I hate to admit it, without her, I'd never have held my championship as long as I have. She was always...there…"

"And now you're wondering if you made a mistake," Orton mused calmly. "If you cutting off that relationship is something that's going to haunt you."

_The image of Sasha's lifeless body twitching and convulsing pathetically beneath her feet after crushing her throat with that chair flashed through Bayley's mind..._

Bayley looked away, her gaze troubled. "It's kind of haunting me _now_."

Orton studied Bayley, the unsettled look on Bayley's otherwise pretty face. Silently, he had to admit to himself that even though she had the reputation of being the least sexy of the Horsewomen, Bayley was, in her own way, quite a fetching woman. But when she had come to him for advice last year, he didn't agree to it just as a means to a physical end. He got plenty of action on his own so that he wasn't wanting for sex. He agreed to it because there was something about Bayley that reminded her of himself once, a lifetime ago. Reminded him of being that naïve 24-year-old kid that was so happy when Triple H celebrated his first world title defense by having Evolution carry him on their shoulders...only for Hunter to flash the thumbs-down and have the men he once saw as 'friends' betray him and beat the holy hell out of him. Like he was back then, Bayley was too caught up in having friends, being loved, getting approval from others when she came to him, lost and confused and in search of guidance. In some ways, by helping Bayley, Randy felt like he was going back in time to smarten up that stupid kid he once was and setting him on the path he should have taken from the start instead of learning the hard way.

Randy leaned in, turning his head to the side, his voice a murmur laced with curiosity. "Let me ask you something, just between the two of us, career killer-to-career killer. All that stuff you said, about Sasha never really being your best friend, about using her...was that true? Or was that just stuff for dramatic effects?"

She was hesitating. He noticed, logged that info away silently into his head as Bayley slowly replied. "It wasn't...all true."

"Then what was the lie and what was the truth?" Off her hesitation, Orton smiled, turned on that infamous charm that Bayley had been warned about. "Hey...c'mon, I won't tell a soul. You've trusted me this far, haven't you?"

Bayley sighed. Part of her still didn't completely trust Randy Orton, she wasn't that stupid. But she needed to tell someone. She had turned her back on all of her old friends. She couldn't talk to her old friend and pseudo-crush Finn Balor since he was off on NXT these days. And frankly, most of the other people around were either bitches or conniving asshole cutthroats. For better or worse, the Viper was the only person she could talk to, could trust these days. And she really, really could use someone to talk to. Especially after...Sasha…

"I did love Sasha," Bayley confessed. "She was like a sister to me. There was a time where I would have taken a bullet for that woman. I loved her like she was family…" Bayley's face grew bitter. "But she didn't love me back. Not as much as she loved having gold around her waist. Not as much as she loved having the spotlight, even when it was mine. The same with Becky, and for damn sure it was the same thing with _Charlotte…_ " Bayley said the blonde woman's name like it was a cuss word. "...The Four Horsewomen of NXT. A sisterhood. Trailblazers and pioneers. The four musketeers." Bayley snorted. "A crock of complete bullshit. They were all out for themselves. They never gave a damn about me, or each other."

"You told me they had a nickname for you in that group," Orton said, listening intently, stroking his chin as he watched her every move, her every word. Studying her like she was the most interesting thing in the world. Bayley noticed that...and a part of her did like that. "Something they always called you. Something you hated, something that always got under your skin. What was that word again? Rookie? Squirt? Shrimp…? No, what was it…?"

Bayley's eyes darkened. " _Runt_. They called me 'runt.'"

She hated, despised that nickname, which Charlotte coined, of course, but Becky and, to her endless hurt, Sasha, had made sure had stuck among their group. Sasha insisted that the name was meant to be playful, something that was meant to make light of the fact that Bayley was the beloved baby sister of their little clique. But Bayley saw it for what it was: an insult. A dig at her. Another reminder that she was seen as the least valuable member of the vaunted 4 Horsewomen of NXT. That she wasn't the blonde bombshell with the family pedigree like Charlotte, nor the sultry, talented smokeshow with the harrowing story like Sasha, nor the fiery, cute redhead-turned-badass like Becky. That all she would ever be was just "The Other Horsewoman", the kid sister of the group, the "less than"... "the runt". That she would always be...just Bayley. And being just Bayley...was never going to be good enough.

Watching as her knuckles slowly turned white, Orton coldly smirked, almost like a reptile. "You hated that nickname, huh?"

"... _Yes_ ," Bayley practically hissed, her brown eyes clouding to almost a black color in their hatred.

"And when you jumped off that turnbuckle, stomped as hard as you could to break Sasha's pretty little neck...how did that make you feel?"

Bayley thought back to that fateful moment...and she remembered.

_Watching Sasha, unconscious and helpless from her perch at the turnbuckle, a chair around Sasha's neck...and yet still so damn beautiful that it pissed her off to no end. Reminding her even at her mercy that she was still somehow better than her. She always thought that she was better than her. And what was worse was that everyone else thought so, too. Sasha was always the prettier one, the smarter one, the sexier one, the one with the best matches, the cooler one...and Bayley was...there, also. Didn't matter how hard she worked, or how much she gave her blood, sweat and tears to this business, didn't matter how much she wanted it, or how far she would go….somehow Sasha's star would always outshine hers. Just like Becky's and Charlotte's did. She remembered having to fight and scratch and claw for everything all those months last year while Sasha went home to deal with her little "mental burnout" or whatever, instead of competing alongside her trying to win those tag titles back. Abandoning her without a care in the world, which was so like Sasha, always thinking of herself first instead of anyone else. Not even thinking about how her absence would affect Bayley. She remembered the pent-up bitterness, the frustration, the jealousy, the rage that had manifested itself into a thick, poisonous, black hatred that was choking her insides, in that one moment, all she wanted to do was to make Sasha feel all the pain that Bayley had felt for all these years…_

"...good. It felt...good," Bayley finally said, snapping out of her brief haze. "It made me feel...powerful. Feel...strong. It felt like...like…"

"Like you were a _god_ , right?" Randy finished for her, his deep rumble of a voice as deadly to Bayley's ears as much as the sinister hiss of a black mamba. "The power to take someone's career, something they've worked their entire life for, something they worked so long and hard for building, cementing, constructing...and just wipe it out in a single moment. Building your legacy on top of the ashes of theirs. Yes, I know the feeling well. I've ended more than my share of careers in my time, and the only thing that equates to it is...well...something that would be inappropriate for a man to discuss with a respected female co-worker."

An icy, snake-like grin slowly spread across the third generation Superstar's otherwise handsome features, and it sent a chill shivering down Bayley's spine, and for a brief second, she wondered if this is what Clarice Starling would feel like sitting across from Hannibal Lecter.

Off the glint of fear in her eyes, Orton tried softening his approach.

"Bayley...I know what you're going through," he said, patiently, politely, as if suddenly shedding his skin into something more trustworthy, more appealing. "But there's a saying in this business: you can make friends, or you can make money. Now, I've tried having friends. Evolution, I thought they were my friends. And as it turned out, I found out the hard way that they were just using me. I was just a meat shield for Triple H to hold on to that world title that I would have been taking off his waist had I been an attack dog instead of his lap dog. I thought Edge was my friend when we did the Rated RKO thing, but I found out that all he was ever doing was holding me down, keeping me away from going after the titles he wanted by keeping me by his side, where I could do the least amount of damage. But eventually, I smartened up, I realized that the only person I could trust, the only person that had my back…was _me_. And that's all I needed. And you know what happened next, huh? I ended up kicking every single member of Evolution in the head. I sent Edge to the hospital twice, I pretty much ended his career, _again_. They're all gone, and yet I'm still here, still as dangerous and as prominent as I ever was. Anyone who was ever a threat to me, I took them down and took them down _hard_. And I went on to notch 12 more world titles to my name and become one of the most feared, the most dominant and the most well-paid superstars in the _history_ of this business. Because when I reached those crossroads where I had to make a choice between the friends or the money, I chose the money. Sure, maybe that means I'm not gonna get many Christmas cards by kicking idiots like AJ Styles, Jeff Hardy, Big Show and Drew McIntyre in the head, but when you're living in a big nice house with four, five cars and the next couple generations of your family are well taken care of, I can sleep easy at night."

Bayley's attention to the man was almost hypnotic. Like he had coiled around her and pulled her in, and she'd be damned if she didn't hang on every word. Randy Orton was everything she wanted to be. Everything she was trying to become. Feared. Respected. Rich. Powerful. Accomplished. Desirable. There was something dangerous, and yet exciting about him that drew her in completely. She was the student sitting at the feet of the master, and his every word was worth its weight in gold, in her book.

"Friends got you nowhere, Bayley, you said so yourself. Charlotte _humiliated_ you, _berated_ you. Becky _ignored_ you. And Sasha...she _used_ you. _**Abandoned**_ you. Took her ball and went home, and left you high and dry in the fourth quarter with time running down. Is that what you want to go back to being? To being Bayley the Door Mat? Bayley the Pushover? Bayley the Other Horsewoman? Bayley the Goof with the Stupid Balloon People, always caring about putting smiles on every snot-nosed kid's face and getting skipped over for title shots, left off TV, no place in this company until you spent the prime years of your career and your life here as an afterthought while your 'friends' make history and score those big paychecks without you? Do you want to spend your life as Bayley the _Runt_?"

Randy could see how Bayley's nostrils flared up in anger at the mention of that loathsome nickname. _Good_ , he smiled darkly.

He slowly reached out and placed his hand on hers, and for a moment, Bayley felt a shiver of a different kind pass through her body, staring mesmerized into those sharp, piercing blue eyes of his like she was a canary frozen helplessly by the gaze of a hungry cobra.

"Or do you want to be Bayley Dos Straps? The Role Model? The girl that makes history? The girl that stands alone at the top of the mountain with the deep pockets and the TV time and the gold and fame and everything that goes with it? The woman who has dominated, _dominated_ Friday Night Smackdown for more than a year, standing over the bodies of every single woman that ever embarrassed you? The money or the friends. You can't have both, Bayley; you can only pick one. Which is going to be?"

He could see the doubt slowly fade from her brown eyes, the tiny flicker of innocence, weakness, all traces of good, slowly snuff itself out like a dying campfire being doused by a cold bucket of water. The decision was being made in her mind, and Randy fought not to smile... _yet_.

Bayley's voice was firm, though tinged by bitterness, her eyes resolute. "I tried having friends. That didn't work out. The money? Sounds pretty nice."

 _Now_ The Viper did let himself smile, a cold, reptilian grin. His protégé was learning. He raised his water bottle as a toast. "To Queen Bayley Dos Straps. First of her name. Career Killer. Smackdown Women's Champion, The Real Queen of the WWE Universe. Long May She Reign."

Bayley smirked, chuckled, and raised her own water bottle in return, clanging it with Randy's to complete the toast. As she turned to look at the faces of the women passing in and out around the catering tables, some with not-too-hidden disdain at her—probably because of what she did to Sasha, Bayley realized—while others looked at her with a hint of fear in their eyes, darting their eyes away when she met their gaze challengingly...Bayley began to understand what Randy was talking about. They may not like her, but for the first time in Bayley's life, they would notice her, they would respect her, and most of all, they would fear her.

And she _liked_ that.

She coldly smiled at the rest of the idiots in the room. _Let them stare_ , she decided. She had won, Sasha was gone, her career crushed by Bayley's own bare hands, her other rivals were vanquished. She was on top now, and there wasn't a damn thing any of them could do about it.

Bayley smirked cruelly, taking a satisfied swig of her water bottle. "Long May She _fucking_ Reign."

* * *

**To Be Concluded**


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

**Tuesday Sept. 15**

**Orlando Regional Medical Center**

**Orlando, Florida**

**12:37 a.m.**

* * *

" _Hey, stepchild. What's shakin'?"_

Becky groaned as she heard the familiar, aloof voice and the nickname she didn't care for. Only one person in the world ever called her that. Now she was regretting answering her phone despite the "Unknown Caller" warning.

"How the fook did you get this number?"

" _Talent relations, of course. And it's a new phone. I had a feeling you wouldn't have been so quick to pick up if you knew it was me."_

"If I knew it was you, I would've blocked ya."

" _Hey, hey, that's not nice, is that nice?"_

The mocking tone did nothing to improve Becky's rapidly souring mood. She had just seen Sasha drift off to sleep, which was no easy task. The nightmares still had not subsided. And they varied. Sometimes, Sasha would relive the fateful moment when Bayley stomped down hard on that stupid chair wrapped around her throat. Other times, it was that dream of Bayley, Alexa, Charlotte and Becky herself burying her alive.

The latest one? Sasha and Becky would be on the road heading for a Pay Per View event. Laughing, smiling, listening to music and singing along to their favorite songs just like old times. They'd get a flat tire. Frustrated, Sasha would get out of the car, checking it for damage. She'd turn back to the open driver's door to tell Becky the news...only to find Bayley. Scowling, eyes full of hatred and rage. Sasha would be too surprised to stop Bayley from launching herself at her, throwing Sasha's head and body hard into the car door, even slamming the door hard on Sasha's hand, the crunching sound of her bones reverberating in her ears as she cried out in agony. Bayley straddling Sasha's prone body, using her weight to pin down the wounded Boston beauty, Bayley's hands wrapping around Sasha's slender, injured throat, Sasha coughing and gagging in pain and fear, her breathing becoming impossible. Looking over Bayley's shoulder to find Becky standing there, looking on sadly but not moving to help, looking into Sasha's pleading, pained eyes but ignoring her pleas for help. Becky finally uttering a sad, simple question: "Why'd you turn your back on us, Sasha? Why?" Then Sasha woke up screaming, tossing and turning furiously until Becky woke her up, Sasha crying brokenly into her shoulder as Becky held her troubled friend in her arms, whispering soothing words of comfort in Sasha's ear.

Becky had just managed to get Sasha to go back to sleep and try and get a few winks of shuteye herself. The baby needed rest, and she knew that. And she was well on her way to doing that as she laid back on the sofa and was slipping into Dreamland...only to be disturbed by the vibration of her cell phone.

Upon hearing Charlotte's annoyingly haughty voice, Becky reminded herself about the dangers of not letting some calls go to voicemail. "No, but neither are you, so I don't really give a rat's arse. Whadaya want, Charlotte?"

" _Just wanted to check up on you. A little birdie told me you were looking after poor Sasha after the runt pulled the rug out from under her two weeks ago."_

"What business is that of yours, Blondie?" Becky replied defensively. Charlotte was not privy to that info, and she was pretty sure Sasha wouldn't appreciate the most conceited member of their dysfunctional little sisterhood finding out just how injured she was. Much like Becky, the rivalry between Sasha and Charlotte ran deep and had a ton of history behind it.

" _Nothing, just...curious, is all. I never would've expected 'The Man' to be so generous, especially after how you two went at it last year. Don't tell me motherhood has made you start going soft, Becks."_

Becky's already thin patience was wearing down with every syllable out of Charlotte's mouth. "I'm already bored, Daddy's Girl. You have 10 more seconds to say something useful, and then I'm flushing you and this phone down the nearest toilet."

" _Okay, okay, yeesh, so much for small talk... I just wanted to know what it is that you think you're going to accomplish. What, are you going to try and 'save' Sasha now? Be her guiding light? Help her see the error of her ways?"_

"I'm helping out a friend. I don't give up on my friends."

" _Really? You gave up on_ _ **me**_ _pretty quickly two years ago when I beat you and Carmella at SummerSlam for that pretty blue belt."_

Becky snorted. Let a small pause hang in the air before she answered. "I meant my _real_ friends."

There was a pregnant pause between them after Becky let her retort fly. Even through the silence, Becky knew she had struck a nerve, and she couldn't help the satisfied smirk that spread on her lips. When Charlotte felt cocky, she talked and talked and ran her mouth. When she got hurt, or angry, or something struck a nerve, she went silent. Becky knew that. And she relished the icy silence.

"You really want to know the truth, Charlotte? The truth was that I found out about what you did before the match. I have sources backstage, too. You went to Shane McMahon and tried to have me pulled from the match. Even after everything that I did to earn that title match, all the hell I went through, every hard-fought win to earn my opportunity, _my_ opportunity, to get back that title after waiting a year and a half for another chance at it only for you to get handed a title shot just because, you were trying to use your pull to kill my best chance to get that title back. Couldn't have someone else hogging your spotlight and getting more cheers, eh? Couldn't have Ric Flair's daughter get upstaged by anyone else, not even your so-called best friend. You never cared about me, and you never gave a shit about our friendship. I was just good ol', reliable, _gullible_ Becky to ya, I was only a sidekick to ya. Or maybe 'kickstand' would've been a better word. I was the one who'd hold you up whenever your ego took a beating and your insecurities were getting the better of you. So let's not pretend that what happened to you and what happened to Sasha are the same thing. Sasha didn't deserve it. You did. End of story."

Charlotte's voice offered no remorse for her actions. _"You ought to thank me. Before that, who were you, Becks? Huh? Just the plucky little redhead with the goofy sense of humor who fell short in the big moments. I lit a fire under your ass."_

"By stabbing me in the back," Becky scoffed, humorlessly. "Look, I'm not interested in this little trip down memory lane. So if ya've got nothing left to say, then why don't you just piss off and—"

" _I just want to know if Sasha's okay_ ," Charlotte blurted out. And to Becky's perked-up ears, it almost sounded like the self-professed "Queen" was almost...concerned.

"Hmm...someone who didn't know ya better would almost think you were worried about Sasha," Becky mused.

A brief pause came over the line. Then it was followed by a snort that Charlotte still made sound regal and aloof. " _Maybe I just wanted to see if she had the guts to come back. Or if there was more room up top in the division once I come back to take my throne again_."

"Right. God forbid the wicked queen should have a heart," Becky snorted. "Don't worry about Sasha, she's not your concern. I'm looking out for her. That's all you need to know."

With that, Becky quickly pressed the red button on her phone and ended the call. That damned Charlotte, she annoyed her to no end.

Walking back into the room, where only a nightlight illuminated an otherwise dark room, Becky walked over to Sasha's hospital bed and peered over at Sasha's sleeping form. Her eyelids would flutter every now and then, and she would sometimes toss or turn, likely having another nightmare, Becky realized. But every now and then, she would finally just lie still, and in those moments, Sasha looked so peaceful sleeping, so innocent, so much like that sweet, pretty girl with the big wide brown eyes and excited smile that Becky met in the Performance Center years ago.

That was the real Sasha, Becky knew that. Beneath all the swagger and bravado and the preening and the stunning beauty and the vicious streak in the ring and an unquenchable desire to be great, to be legendary, Becky still could see that kid from Boston with the infectious smile. Her surrogate kid sister.

Absently, Becky softly brushed a few stray locks of hair from Sasha's beautiful face. A simple, yet tender gesture of affection.

As if sensing her presence, Sasha's head lolled slightly to the right, her eyes slowly fluttering open. Seeing Becky, Sasha managed a small smile. "Hey," she sleepily greeted the scarlet-haired spitfire.

Becky gave her a rueful smile. "Hey...I didn't mean to wake you."

"It's okay. My dreams haven't been so great lately," Sasha softly replied, her eyes still tinged with a haunted look.

Becky gave her a look of concern. "I could have the nurse come over with a sedative…"

"No," Sasha's still-sleepy voice became a little more firm. "No pills. I either sleep on my own or I don't sleep at all."

Becky could only shake her head. There was that famous competitive fire that Sasha was known for. But this was not the time to be stubborn. "Sash, this isn't a competition. You need your rest if you want to heal faster."

"Nuh-uh," Sasha shook her head, stubbornly. "I'm doing this my way, Red."

Becky felt the frustration flare in her, but opted to keep cool. Sasha was always one to do things her way or the highway. That still hadn't changed even in her injured, weakened state.

Sighing, she looked down to her stomach, patting the precious baby inside. "Hear that? Auntie Sasha's being stubborn. You'll get used to it," Becky smiled at her unborn child.

When she looked up, she met Sasha's stunned, wide brown eyes.

"What?" Becky asked, confused.

The look of vulnerability in Sasha's mocha brown orbs was such that Becky felt her heart move. "A... _Auntie_?"

"Well, yeah, what else would the kid call ya?" Becky shrugged.

Sasha looked at her in amazement. In awe. "Becky...even after everything...everything I did, all the horrible shit I did to you...you'd still let me be near your child?"

Becky got it. There it was. That guilt. Guilt over all the awful crap Sasha did over the last year. To Becky. To all her friends. To everyone that was in the way between The Boss and championship gold. The new Sasha would never have given her actions a second thought. But the real Sasha, the Sasha that Becky knew, was horrified now about what she had done.

Sasha's eyes grew glassy, glistening with emotion. "Becky...I'm sorry. I'm _so_ sorry. I'm sorry for what I did to you. For turning on you. Everything I said, everything I did, what I tried to do—"

Becky reached out and gently pressed a soft hand to Sasha's smooth cheek. "Shh, hey, now. Don't worry about that now. Water under the bridge. That's all that is, babe. That's over now."

Trembling, Sasha swallowed, but tears ran down her face. "I don't deserve this...I don't deserve you...or your child…"

Becky gave her a soft, understanding smile. "Yeah, well...too bad, you're stuck with us, anyway. I'll put it on yer tab."

Sasha let out a soft, watery laugh, and the two enjoyed a moment of peace. Becky leaned over and pressed a kiss on Sasha's forehead.

"We're family, Sash. Family drives you crazy sometimes. Pisses ya off. Makes ya feel violent on occasion. But in the end...we're all we've got, right? If we can't depend on each other when things are bad, who can we depend on?"

Sasha's chocolate orbs, always so soulful, so expressive, locked with Becky's blue eyes, warm and comforting. Two sisters in spirit reaching out to each other.

"I really did miss you, Becky," Sasha gave her a sad smile.

Becky's warm eyes misted for a moment. "Hey, no more of that sad talk now. There's someone I'd like you to meet." She reached out and grabbed one of Sasha's hands, slowly guiding it towards her swollen belly. Letting Sasha's warm palm rest on the tender bump where her child lay.

Sasha's gasp of amazement and the tender look she gave her would be something Becky would remember all of her days.

"Hey, little one…" Becky whispered to her unborn child. "This is your Auntie Sasha. Sorry it took you guys so long to meet but...better late than never."

* * *

**Wednesday**

**11:19 a.m.**

* * *

Becky watched as Sasha gingerly began putting on her shirt that Becky had purchased for her from the nearest Walmart.

"I don't know about this, Sash," Becky said, doubt on her pretty face. "I know that the injuries aren't as severe now as the doctors thought, but don'cha think ye could've waited a while before calling work back for an interview Friday?"

But Sasha was not hearing it. Wincing as she managed to get her arm through the sleeve, the electric-haired siren gritted her teeth. " _No_. I'm not waiting around and sitting on my ass at home while Bayley runs her stupid mouth about ending my career and being done with me, Becky. I didn't come this far in this business to be a stepping stone for anyone."

It wasn't a great ensemble. A small grey t-shirt that came with a black hoodie. Comfortable, but baggy black workout pants. Dark sunglasses and a green Boston Celtics cap. Very incognito. But that was the idea. The last thing that Sasha wanted to do was to draw attention to herself when leaving the hospital. Besides, if she left in her skimpy ring gear that she entered the hospital with that night, she was pretty sure she'd have stopped traffic and drawn more unnecessary attention while she was trying to lay low. Sasha had finally been given the okay to go home from doctors. It was music to Sasha's ears. She hated hospitals. She always had. The sterilized smell, all those machines, the bills that came with them. She missed being home. She missed shopping. She missed being able to do her workouts. She missed being able to turn her head without pain. The idea that she would finally start to get some semblance of her normal life back after what Bayley did brought her a sense of relief...and clarity.

Sasha knew exactly what she wanted now. She wanted revenge. Plain and simple. It wasn't even about the Smackdown Women's Championship, a title she had never held, had always wanted to add to her already legendary resume. But if taking it hurt Bayley, and she knew it would, then was exactly what Sasha was going to do. And she did want to hurt Bayley. _Badly_. Just like Bayley had hurt her. While there was a small part of Sasha's heart that grieved the death of her friendship, her bond, with Bayley, it was drowned out by the rest of her. The part that screamed out for, demanded revenge. Biblical-style revenge. A damned _reckoning_. Bayley owed her, and Sasha was coming to collect. In blood and gold.

The first step? Getting out of this damned hospital.

Becky was unconvinced. "But what about getting through rehab first? Your first appointment is tomorrow, just give it some time to see what your body can take—"

" _Becky_ ," Sasha cut her off, harsher than she intended. Realizing the knife-like edge in her voice, Sasha closed her eyes, willed herself to take her volatile temper down a notch. "I know you mean well, and I love you for it, but you do _not_ want to get into an argument with me on this. That bitch stabbed me in the back and tried to end my career...tried to take away everything I've been working so hard for half of my life. And now she's walking around talking shit about me, bragging about what she did to me like I'm some notch on her belt, some scalp she can add and put next to Kairi Sane's?" Sasha shook her head, furiously. "I'm not going to let that slide. I _can't_."

Becky rubbed her face anxiously with her hands. It was beginning to become clearer by the second that there was no way to talk Sasha out of this. Becky had a feeling that rushing back to do an interview barely two weeks since that brutal attack was a mistake that Sasha was walking into. Worse, maybe even a trap. Sasha was too vulnerable physically to properly defend herself, and her list of enemies was long, with an even more dangerous and remorseless Bayley at the top of that list now. Becky would have preferred Sasha waited until her physical therapy was complete and she was given a clean bill of health before diving back into the shark-infested waters that was Smackdown.

But she knew it was useless to try and convince Sasha otherwise. Once Sasha Banks made up her mind on something, she would go after it the only way she knew how: relentlessly and with aggression.

"Alright, alright," Becky sighed. "But just...just promise me that you'll take it easy out there?"

Sasha smiled mischievously over her shoulder at her old friend. "You know me."

Becky gave her a wry grin. "That's what I'm afraid of." A beat. "You know, I don't have to go back home right away. I was thinking maybe I could stick around, crash at a hotel for a little while until you're able to do things by yourself again."

Sasha turned around, surprised at Becky's offer. "Becky...you shouldn't have to stick around because of me. What about the baby? What about…?"

"Hey, don't worry about that," Becky assured her, walking closer to Sasha. "I know some pretty good doctors here if I need. And I'm not due back in LA for another checkup for at least another month. Besides…" she gently rubbed a hand over her pregnant belly. "...I think the little one wants to get a chance to get to know his cool Auntie Sasha."

At that, Sasha beamed a brilliant smile at Becky. "Well, if that's the case...who would I be to disappoint my future niece?"

Laughing softly, the two women embraced each other in a tender hug. This entire process had been so frightening for Sasha. So many questions. So few people she could count on. A grim fate that a dark corner of her mind and her heart whispered at her that she had done to herself. And yet, here she was, with Becky. With a long-lost sister she thought she had driven away. Offering her help. Giving her encouragement and support at a time she needed it most. Even trusting Sasha to be the aunt for her own precious baby. _How'd I ever get to be so lucky?_

"Thanks, Becks...I wasn't sure I was going to be able to make it. I owe you," Sasha murmured into Becky's shoulder.

"You don't owe me nothin', darlin'. Just get better," Becky replied, patting Sasha gently on her back. She then flashed a smirk. "Besides...you'll just make it up to me through babysitting duties."

Laughing, Sasha couldn't help the big smile that came on her face. "I think we can work something out."

* * *

**Friday, Sept. 18 - Friday Night Smackdown**

**WWE Performance Center**

**Orlando, Florida**

**8:47 p.m.**

* * *

Becky couldn't help but to feel a little anxious as she looked around the Performance Center.

This was the place where she and Sasha had begun to forge their path in this business all those years ago. So many memories in this place. Yet right now, frankly, a part of her wished she wasn't here. She didn't like being around this many people since the pandemic had started. And that uneasiness had doubled since she became pregnant.

But Becky knew she had to be here. Sasha needed to have someone in her corner, even if it was just an interview. That whole day, Sasha had been in a mood, Becky had noticed. She was mostly silent the entire drive to the building. Pensive. Normally their car rides were fun. Music blasting, corny jokes flying everywhere, laughter infectiously echoing inside the vehicle, just like old times. But it was clear by the look on Sasha's stoic face that she was not in a mood to fool around today. She had been laying low since Bayley's attack. And now was the first time she would be emerging from that seclusion. She knew it was a big moment, and that she had to be strong. She had to send a very clear message: Sasha Banks wa.s far from dead. She was alive, she was pissed, and she was coming back to take everything she was owed by Bayley.

So Becky simply let her be, checking on her every now and then and offering her words of encouragement whenever they had a brief moment alone in between the producers and backstage attendees buzzing around her, doing her makeup, prying on her condition, trying to get her to sign medical paperwork.

A few of them began to crowd on Becky's space as well, welcoming her back and offering her food and gushing over how far along she was in her pregnancy. Not one for strangers prying in on her, Becky largely brushed most of them off.

Only two minutes to airtime. Becky opted to watch from the other side of the room. She caught a glimpse of Sasha looking to her, her focused and stern brown eyes momentarily softening as she glanced at Becky, a rare glimpse of vulnerability. A hint of Sasha's nervousness revealing to no one else but Becky and Becky alone.

Becky gave her a warm smile and winked. _Go kick some ass._

The silent message was received, and Sasha returned the smile with a small one of her own. _Like a Boss._

Finally, the interview began. Michael Cole didn't waste any time asking Sasha about the extent of her injuries. Sasha took a moment to process that, and Becky could tell from the way she looked down, clutching the white support collar around her injured neck, her eyes sad and haunted for a moment, that Sasha was reliving that awful night. Every painful blow. The clanging sound of that chair as Bayley's full body weight came crashing down on it with Sasha's throat trapped inside…

 _Come on, Sasha, keep it together,_ Becky silently thought to herself. _You can do this. Don't put it all out there, just say what you need them to know, nothing more._

Then she saw Sasha look back up to the barrel of the camera, a cold ice in her eyes, her gaze the look of a competitor. "I'm still here, ain't I?"

Becky smiled, nodded. _Thatta girl, Sasha. You've got this._

Then Cole pressed on about Bayley's rambling comments last week, accusing Sasha of waiting for the right moment to stab her in the back and beating her to the punch, accusing Sasha of using her for years and pretending to be her best friend only to use her, and adding that Bayley had been the one all along simply using her former friend.

"And now I'm nothing to her? She was using me, and now...I'm just useless to her," Sasha said, her voice tinged with emotion and the hurt still finding its way up to etch itself all over her beautiful features.

Becky bit her lip, hard. She knew how much Bayley's friendship had meant to Sasha. Sometimes, Becky silently admitted to herself, she was a little jealous of it. There was a time she thought Charlotte had meant as much to Becky as Bayley had meant to her surrogate sister. But she eventually found out the hard way that Flairs make for poor friends. And that loss had hurt, but Becky was able to shut away that pain, burn it with her rage move forward. Sasha was different. Her heart was always on her sleeve. And that was something that had gotten her into trouble sometimes, Becky had noticed. She'd have to talk to her about how to protect that heart of hers a little more after all of this was over.

"I heard every single word Bayley said last week and I can't help but be filled with emotions while I sit here in the Performance Center, a place that we built. A place that we trained every single day together talking about our dreams, talking about our goals. Talking about what we wanted to do _together_."

Becky saw the passion in Sasha's eyes and she couldn't help but to be moved. Silently, she found herself going back in time. Waking up at 5 a.m. for training. Spending hours in the ring with all the recruits. Perfecting holds and moves and taking bumps and working and working and working until her body felt close to collapse. Gravitating towards Sasha, Bayley and Charlotte, the only ones who seemed to want this crazy dream as much as Becky did. The four of them bonding together, eating together, training together, spending nights in a cramped studio apartment together, laughing and drinking and fighting and hugging and sometimes crying, making a makeshift sisterhood among themselves when they were so far away from their loved ones, with so many odds against them, trying to change the perception of women's wrestling by dreaming big, working hard and leaving it all out there every day.

 _Those were the days_ , Becky mused, feeling a flair of emotion well up inside her. _I think that was the last time I was truly happy. Hell, we were all happier then. It was just us against the world. Before all the corporate suits and politics. Before the egos. Before...all of this._

" … We used to walk these halls just to talk about everything we have achieved now. This whole summer here at the Performance Center, we showed the world and told the world that we were going to take over the whole damn company _together_. And now when I walk these halls, when I come here now, when I see all these girls that come here now…"

Sasha's emotions began getting the better of her, tears welling up in her eyes. And Becky began to feel her own eyes mist a little. She knew exactly what Sasha was talking about.

Neither Becky nor Sasha, particularly, had any kind of guarantee of making it to where they did. Neither of them came from a famous wrestling family like Charlotte did. Neither of them looked like the traditional mold of women this company had favored, like the Bella Twins or Kelly Kelly or Alexa weren't supposed to have made it. But they did make it. With nothing but their wills, their hearts and their drive to succeed, to be considered the best. And in doing so, they changed the game completely. Opened the door for so many others. It was hard, the hardest thing they'd ever done, and they had to sacrifice so much to do it. Suffer for so long. Yet here they were.

Sasha had managed to compose herself again. "...it's because we did that together. All these rooms, all our pictures, all our posters, all our accomplishments, all of our accolades, we did all of this together. And if these walls could talk…"

Becky watched as Sasha's eyes welled up again, her lower lip quivering in emotion, looking down as she tried to reign in the tsunami of emotions roiling inside her. _Oh, Sash…_ Becky watched and she began to feel the tears pricking the back of her eyes.

"If these walls could tell you…" Sasha tried to finish her thought, but the nostalgia, the emotions, the memories were all too much for her, the beautiful blue-haired siren from Boston leaning over and running her hands through her hair as she fought a losing battle with the tears than came from her eyes.

Becky hastily wiped the tears that sprung to her eyes, her own hand drifting towards one of the walls, feeling the smooth texture of the paint. So many stories behind these walls. _If these walls could talk...they would cry. They would sing. They'd tell you how four girls with big dreams came together against all the odds. How they worked and fought and sweat and bled and paid the price for their dreams. How we became closer to each other than we'd ever thought possible. They'd tell you how I met a girl who was a stranger from Boston, and ended up becoming family._

Finally, Sasha swallowed hard, composed herself again and focused on what she came to do. Summoning as much of The Boss as she could.

"I came here this week to answer your questions. Bayley...If you want to say I think you're some type of idiot, that I think you're naïve, Bayley I know that you're watching this," she said, her brown eyes simmering with rage. "And you're damn straight, you _are_ an idiot! You _are_ naïve! _Because you are NOTHING without me_!"

Her lips quivered in emotion again, giving the camera, giving Bayley, wherever the hell she was, a look of anger and pity. Sasha softly repeated those words again, no anger, just pity. Pity for the woman who threw away a seven-year friendship for ego and gold. "You are _nothing_ without me."

Becky nodded her head, her lips forming a thin straight line. _Damn right she's nothing without you, Sasha. And deep down, Bayley knows it, too._

Hell, everyone knew it, Becky mused. The only reason why Bayley had held that belt as long as she had was because of Sasha. If it wasn't for Sasha, Bayley would have lost that belt months ago. She had lost count of how many times Sasha had played a crucial role for Bayley. Running interference. Distracting the ref. Grabbing Bayley's foot and placing it on the bottom rope whenever she was about to get pinned. How many times did Bayley win in the last few months simply because Sasha was there? Using her experience and her wiles to turn the odds in Bayley's favor.

Bayley was doing good, Becky admitted to herself. Really good. But Becky learned long ago that there is a difference between doing good and _being_ good. And Sasha wasn't just good, she wasn't even just great...she was _special_. And she knew that deep down inside, Bayley _knew_ that, and it ate her up inside. She knew personally, because it sometimes used to eat at Becky herself. It wasn't easy being so close with and yet being compared to Sasha and Charlotte, two generational talents, two of the best pound-for-pound women's wrestlers of all time. How could anyone compare to what those two could do in the ring? They did things that were never even heard of from women's wrestlers, from wrestlers _period_. Ultimately, Becky realized there was only one way to cope with being in the shadow of two G.O.A.T.s...by becoming a G.O.A.T. herself. But she never lost her way in doing so. Bayley had. Or maybe this was who Bayley always was deep down, Becky mused silently. None of it mattered now, anyway.

Sasha refocused her pain, her frustration at all the days of hospital exams and body aches and flare-ups in her neck and channeled it straight at the woman she once called her best friend. "I loved you like a sister, Bayley. I loved you more than you _deserved_. The only reason why you had that title you love for so long is because of _me_. You know it, I know it, and the whole world knows it. And how did you repay me? You tried to take away the one thing that I've ever wanted to do ever since I was a little girl. You tried to take my career from me, you tried to take my _dreams_ away from me!"

Closing her eyes, Sasha counted backwards, tried to channel the ice to cool the fires of rage inside her heart that were threatening to consume her. She looked at the camera, pictured Bayley's smug face, and coolly continued. "You're nothing to me now. You're not a sister, you're not my partner, you're not my friend...I look at you and all I see is someone who owes me, and I am coming to collect. I'm coming to collect in gold, and I'm coming to collect in blood. _Your_ blood, Bayley."

Becky shivered a little at the passion in Sasha's voice. This was the girl who had won a place in her heart so long ago. The real Sasha. The passionate, heart-on-her-sleeve, give-it-her-all girl with that huge heart who never knew when to give up.

"And since I'm useless to you now, one day, I promise you, I _will_ be back, I _will_ get my hands on you, and all of this pain, all of this suffering, all of this hurt you gave me, I'm going to give back to you _with interest_. And then, since you tried to take from me the one thing I love, I am going to take the one thing _you_ love – the SmackDown Women's Championship."

_**CLANG!** _

What happened next happened so fast that Becky barely had time to react. She saw a blur of green and blue fly out of nowhere and strike Sasha from behind right in the back with a vicious, evil chair shot. The blow sent a stunned Sasha crumpling to the ground, dazed and clutching her injured neck.

" _Fuck_!" a shocked Becky shouted, standing up out of her chair. " _ **SASHA**_!"

She finally caught sight of the figure who attacked her friend. Standing over her with a dented steel chair and the blue brand's belt with an enraged, demented expression on her face.

 _Bayley_ , Becky realized in horror.

The shock of it sent a ripple of pain through her stomach, and for a moment, Becky dropped to one knee, gasping for breath as she ran a frantic hand down her swollen stomach. Checking her beloved unborn daughter. _It's okay, baby girl. You're okay. You're okay. You're okay,_ Becky willed herself to think. She had to be okay. She had to be.

She didn't have much time to recover before her eyes widened at another horrifying sight. Bayley, wrenching the protective neck collar from around Sasha's injured neck. Sasha, out of breath, laying in pain as she clutched her throat, defenseless, helpless, just like she was two weeks ago. And Bayley, wrapping that chair around Sasha's throat, squeezing the blades hard as Sasha choked and gagged in agony.

"Really, Sasha? **REALLY**? You're gonna take my title? **_Not if I take you out first_**!" Bayley's deranged voice screamed down at a prone Sasha, her eyes full of hatred.

 _Just like last time...it's just like last time,_ Becky realized in horror...until a moment of clarity struck her. This _wasn't_ like last time.

Because this time...Becky was right here.

And she'd be damned if she was going to stand back and let Bayley do this to Sasha again. Not on her watch.

Sucking in a deep breath, Becky dug down deep, grabbed the steel chair she had been sitting in, folded it quickly and with a speed she didn't know she still had, found herself propelling across the room at Bayley, just as Bayley was about to lift her foot up and stomp down hard on a helpless Sasha's neck with all her might…

_**CLANG!** _

Missed. Somehow, Bayley had caught sight of Becky's imminently arriving attack and managed to quickly duck out of the way, Becky's chair crashing down hard against the exercise equipment Sasha was next to.

Becky rebounded quickly and held the steel chair up like a bat as she found herself holding off Bayley, standing between her and a vulnerable, gasping Sasha laying on the ground. The rage in the blue eyes of "The Man" was so hot it practically made her eyes glow, like a wolf standing between a bear and its cubs.

Their eyes met and Becky could see the look of surprise, of outrage, and a hint of fear in Bayley's beady little dark eyes as she met the redhead's fiery gaze. Becky saw that fear, and she liked it. Relished it. But she knew that she couldn't fight. It was way too dangerous for her baby. And after what just happened, Becky held no such illusions of an unstable, deranged Bayley as being above harming her unborn child.

But there was no reason for Bayley to know that.

Scowling, Becky gripped her chair hard, bared her teeth in a snarl that would have made a hungry lion think twice. "C'mon... _ **C'MON**_ , **Bayley**! _Make another move_! I _dare_ ya!" Her breaths were hot, huffing pants of anger pushing through her nostrils like a car engine piston on overdrive. "Give me a fucking excuse, bitch...give me an excuse and I'll take your **_fucking_ **head off _right_ here, _right_ now!"

Furious, yet cautious, Bayley seemed to contemplate it, took a step in Becky's direction, only to take a stumbling step back when a growling Becky took a step forward to meet her, the deadly steel chair in her hands dented from the force of her last blow, cocked and ready to strike.

Finally, the other stage hands crowded around Sasha protectively and shouted at Bayley to leave the building, threatening to call security.

"Relax, **RELAX**!" Bayley shouted at them, taking a few steps back and walking towards the exit. But not before turning back to Becky, smirking cruelly at her. "Motherhood suits you, Becky. But take it easy. Wouldn't want anything to... _happen_...to the kid, would you?"

Becky's eyes widened, her nostrils flaring with rage as she processed those words.

"What'd you say?" Becky asked in a deadly hush of a voice. Then she began stalking towards Bayley's retreating form, chair in hand and murder in her eyes. " _ **What'd you just fucking say to me**_ _, you little cun—?"_

"Becky!" one of the stage crew blocked off her route towards Bayley, who had scampered out the door to safety. "Becky, we need to check on Sasha, we need to make sure she's okay!"

Cursing aloud, Becky dropped the chair, then grabbed the stagehand by the front of his shirt. "Make sure Bayley's out of the building and off the property. If she gets back in here, you and I are going to have a conversation that you're not going to enjoy...or remember. _Got it_?"

The gangly stagehand could only nod in trepidation. Becky roughly pushed him away and made her way to check on Sasha, who was wincing in pain, clutching her tender throat as she found a way to push herself up into a sitting position.

Shoving away the crowd of people around Sasha, Becky began taking control of the situation. "What the hell are you idiots doing standing around like a bunch of dopes? _Call a damn medic_. _**NOW**_ , damn you!"

"Medic's already on the way," one of them blurted out, trying to assure Becky.

But Becky was beyond being assured. "Well, what the fuck is he doing, _taking a nap_? Get him here **_now_**!"

"He's coming as fast as he can!"

" _Tell him to move faster_!" Becky snarled at him, before she softened her tone, checking on a panting, pained and shaken Sasha.

"Sasha, honey, are you okay? Medic's already coming, he should be here soon," Becky said as she knelt down, her hand tracing soothing circles around Sasha's back.

Immediately, Sasha shook her head. "No...no medic…"

Becky bit her lip. "Sasha, babe, you need to let them see you, ya just got whacked with a chair, you're still recovering…"

"No medic!" Sasha blurted out, her voice more insistent. "I just...I just need a minute…" Instinctively, she leaned her head onto Becky's shoulder, fighting back the tears as she took comfort in her friend's presence. Becky sighed, wrapped an arm protectively around Sasha's shoulders, pulling her close in a half-hug.

That was so close. Bayley got too damn close. And Becky would have had to watch what happened to Sasha happen again, in front of her own eyes. The thought sickened the Irish beauty to her core. And it made her very angry.

She looked to one of the people nearby with a security guard shirt. "This was supposed to be a closed set, how the hell did Bayley get in the damn building? What the hell do you people do at work, watch Tik Tok videos?" Becky angrily demanded.

"We don't know, she must've snuck in here before we closed the set. We'll look into it, Miss Lynch—"

"Oh, you'll look into it? How nice, _good for you_!" Becky sarcastically spat. "How about you do your damned job and make sure she's outta here? Go on, now, _go_! All of you!"

With that, most of the stage workers began rushing off to find a medic and secure the building.

Satisfied that the camera was off and everything was safe, Becky returned her attention to Sasha.

"Sasha...sweetheart, are you alright?" she asked the trembling woman leaning on her shoulder.

Sasha shook her head, her eyes shut hard, her lips wobbling. She was scared, and Becky could tell. "Oh, God...Becky, when she...when she had that chair around my neck...I...I felt like I couldn't breathe...like it was happening all over again…" Her voice was a shaken whisper. "If you hadn't been there…"

"But I was," Becky gently assured her. "I was here then just like I'm here now. _Family_ , remember? Family."

Sasha nodded. "Family…" she whispered that word reverently. She burrowed herself deep into Becky's embrace as if she was clinging to life, her fire-haired friend wrapping her arms around her tightly.

Becky sighed in sadness. She had no idea how far gone Bayley truly was until she saw her eyes up close. If there was ever any good in her, anything decent, it was gone now. Attacking Sasha while she was injured, again, threatening her child, something that Becky would never forgive Bayley for….whoever this new Bayley was, she was a stranger to them now.

But it didn't matter. Sasha was safe, the baby was safe, everything was okay, Becky told herself. Everything else didn't matter. But one thing was for certain. Bayley was becoming a problem that wasn't going to go away.

And because of that, Becky silently decided, she was going to have to deal with Bayley the only way she knew how to deal with problems.

Personally.

* * *

**To Be Continued**

* * *

**Next** : Becky makes a surprise appearance on Smackdown...where an unstable Bayley waits.

The Man and The Role Model face off. Will this be a decision a pregnant Becky will regret?

And what will Sasha think when she finds out?

Tune in next time for the answers.

* * *


	5. Chapter 5

* * *

**Friday, Sept. 18 - Friday Night Smackdown**

**Banks Rental Home**

**Orlando, Florida**

**11:19 p.m.**

* * *

"Look, I don't care what you have to do, just make this happen," Becky practically growled into her cellphone as she paced the patio deck outside.

She felt her temper crackling and rising the longer she dealt with Adam Pearce, the latest in a long line of goons in monkey suits that the company had hired to manage both brands. Much like most suits she's dealt with in this company the last few years, he embodied every single trait that they all did: spineless. Cowardly. And in love with red tape and bureaucracy.

"I don't give a flying fuck about medical authorization or what have you, just pencil me in for next week on Smackdown. An entire segment. All things considered, you ought to be fast-tracking this considering an appearance from 'The Man' will give you a nice ratings boost. Prioritize, Pearce, ratings means your ass won't be on the unemployment line anytime soon," Becky ground out into the phone.

She was fighting to keep her voice down, with Sasha taking a nap on the couch. Sasha had been rattled since Bayley's second attack a few hours ago, and she was silent most of the way home. Well, a makeshift home, anyway. Years ago, when they were just starting out in the performance center, all four of the Horsewomen pooled their money together and went in on a cozy little place not far from the center. They shouldn't have been able to afford it, but a small loan from Charlotte's father, the wealthy and legendary Ric Flair, had enabled them all to shack up in a rather comfortable four-bedroom rental home which they were able to stay in with all four of them dividing up rent and utilities. After Sasha signed her first major contract a few years back, she had opted to reach out and re-rent it again. She liked being able to go back to the Performance Center every few months to step her game up and train, hone her craft, continue to sharpen her skills. And having a place nearby to hang her hat and rest her head, she found, was critical in her training. That decision became even more important after the pandemic hit. And especially after Bayley's recent actions. Having a nearby home to call her own for the time being was huge. Becky had now taken up residence in her old room temporarily. It still looked and smelled exactly the same: warm. Inviting. Hell, even the same sheets Becky used to sleep in were still there, washed of course.

Becky ground her teeth together as she continued to argue with that idiot Pearce. He had been spending the last 15 minutes trying to talk Becky out of that appearance, citing her safety and her pregnancy. When that failed, he tried to use legal paperwork and waivers necessary for Becky to sign to buy time.

Finally, Becky's patience was at an end with Pearce's hemming and hawing. " _ **Look**_ , _Pearce_ ," Becky snarled. "I've heard enough of your gibbering. You have about 5 minutes to get me what I want. If not, I go right to Hunter and Vince. And you know damn well that they won't take kindly to you tryin' to stall somethin' that would give the show a ratings boost when they need it. Chew on that for a bit, and get back to me. Clock's ticking, boy-o."

She pressed the red button on the phone and the call went dead. She figured that was enough to have that little worm writhing on the hook. And if he really was that stupid to not cave to Becky's demands, she had Vince on speed dial. She knew for a fact that he wouldn't hesitate to book her.

The maternal part of her, the one that was so connected to her precious, innocent baby girl growing inside her, was screaming at her that this was a bad idea. She had seen the look in Bayley's eyes up close for herself. She had never seen them look so dark, so unbalanced...dangerous. She clearly didn't care who she hurt these days. Not her best friend. Not her former friends. Not even an unborn child.

But it was precisely because of those things, especially that last veiled threat towards her little girl, why Becky realized that she had to do this. _Needed_ to do this. There was simply no other way. There was only one way to deal with a vicious animal like Bayley had become; walk straight up to it and swat it right in the mouth. Let that animal know that she wasn't afraid of her.

Yet she knew that Sasha would worry. Would try to talk her out of it. She'd argue with Becky that this wasn't her fight, that it was _Sasha's_ fight. That she didn't want Becky fighting _her_ battles. That she shouldn't be putting her unborn child's life at risk, that Becky had no idea what Bayley was capable of.

Becky silently realized that all of those points were right.

Which is why she decided not to tell Sasha. At least, not yet.

There was no reason to alarm her and besides, Becky could be equally as stubborn as Sasha, maybe a little moreso. She'd figure out a way to break it to her before next week...eventually.

Becky sighed in fatigue as she made her way inside, closing the door behind her. As she made her way to the living room, she found Sasha lying curled up under a light, soft blanket on the couch, her eyes glued on the TV watching some old movie. It looked like "Romeo Must Die" with Aaliyah and Jet Li; Becky had never seen it herself, but she heard good things about it. The cup of chamomile tea that Becky made for Sasha lay empty on the nearby coffee table in front of the TV.

The look in Sasha's eyes was still a bit shaken, Becky could tell. She stared at the TV like she was almost in a trance, as if she wasn't really paying attention to the movie. Her head was resting against the arm of the couch.

"Hey," Becky greeted softly, tracing her fingers along the perfect mocha-hued skin of Sasha's arm.

Sasha shifted her body to see the redhead. A ghost of a smile spread across her face. "Hey," she reciprocated the greeting with a small, throaty one of her own. "You were gone a while. Who were you talking to?"

"No one important," Becky smoothly replied, shrugging her shoulders.

Sasha arched an eyebrow at that. "Nobody important, yet you kept talking for 15 minutes? Try again, girl."

"Just office stuff. Talent Relations calling to check up on me and you after what happened, no big deal," Becky shrugged again, smoothly lying through her teeth. "Nothing to worry about now."

Sasha didn't quite believe her, but was too preoccupied with her own emotions to give it any more thought.

Letting out a sigh, Becky walked around the couch and sat down, sliding down a little bit closer to Sasha. Absently, she reached out and laid her hand softly on Sasha's shoulder. A comforting gesture.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Becky asked, quietly.

She noticed the vacant, sad stare in Sasha's sad brown eyes. Like she was drifting off into a place far beyond that of the television.

Wordlessly, Sasha shifted her body over and the two of them found themselves cuddling on the couch. The bluenette let her head rest on Becky's pregnant stomach, the redhead absently running her hand through Sasha's electric-colored hair and soothingly rubbing circles on her back with the other free hand.

While the moment was tender, intimate, even, there was nothing sexual about the embrace. It was just two women, two soul sisters, finding comfort in each other amid the raging storm that had become their lives. That's how it had always been between Becky and Sasha back in the early days. Neither one of them ever questioned why it was like that between them. It simply... was. And that was good enough for them both.

"Becky?"

"Hmm?"

Sasha's voice was quiet, almost a little ashamed. "The weird part about all of this? Even after everything, everything she did? Part of me still... _loves_ her."

Becky realized who Sasha was talking about. _Bayley_.

Letting out a sigh, Becky nodded sadly. "Yeah….as much as I hate to admit it...part of me does, too."

And it was the truth. There was still a part of Becky that still cared about Bayley. That couldn't forget that smiling, goofy, always happy girl who would always have hugs for her friends, was quick with a joke and who always was willing to bring Becky extra Oreos backstage or on road trips.

But that Bayley was gone now, Becky reminded herself. She was gone and she might never come back. Only this new Bayley existed now. And this new Bayley was dangerous.

And this new Bayley had to be dealt with. That much Becky would see to.

* * *

**Friday, Sept. 25- Friday Night Smackdown**

**The Thunderdome**

**Orlando, Florida**

**9:02 p.m.**

* * *

"Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome back…."The _Man_ ," BECKY LYYYNCH!"

The blaring guitar sounds, raucous drums and loud chorus of " _Whoooooaa_ " from the music of "Celtic Invasion" echoed across The Thunderdome as, for the first time since May, Becky Lynch was walking into a WWE arena and towards a WWE ring once again.

Sporting a long black trench coat, black leather pants and a flattering grey tee shirt, Becky looked around and took a moment to savor the experience. It felt different, for sure. This wasn't the crowd of thousands of people that she had become accustomed to seeing in arenas around the world before the pandemic struck. The Thunderdome was emptier, smaller, feeling more like a giant studio than a true wrestling arena. And she really wasn't a fan of that canned applause and pumped-in crowd noise. It was nothing like the rush of hearing 25,000 people chanting her name and singing her song in the Barclays Center in Brooklyn last year for the Raw After WrestleMania 35 when she came in as "Becky Two Belts", the woman who beat both Ronda Rousey and Charlotte Flair in the main event of WrestleMania to become the first woman ever to simultaneously hold the Raw and Smackdown Women's Championships. But as she saw the faces of the fans being telecast into the arena from home on the hundreds of screens around her, cheering for her, holding their thumbs up in approval, visibly singing along to her song, part of her began to feel a little more at home.

Smiling, she waved to the crowd watching at home, entered the ring and did her signature pose of standing on the bottom rope, leaning into the ropes and raising her hand triumphantly, swollen belly and all.

 _God, I missed this,_ Becky couldn't help but think to herself.

Michael Cole got in the ring at that moment and proceeded to start the interview.

"Becky, I think I speak for all of us here at WWE and for the WWE Universe watching at home when I say 'Welcome Back,'" Cole began sincerely.

"Yes, it's good to be back, Michael, thank you," Becky cheerily replied. "It doesn't feel quite as good as being medically cleared to be back, because as you can see, that's gonna have to wait a while longer." Becky chuckled as she said that, motioning to the unborn girl in her belly.

"Of course, of course, and we all wish you the best of luck with your child and want to see you back real soon," Cole replied with a smile. "But now, the question is on everyone's minds. Surely, like all of the WWE universe, you probably saw what happened to your longtime on-and-off-again friend and rival Sasha Banks a couple of weeks ago at the hands of Bayley when she unleashed one of the most unexpected and vicious attacks we've ever seen here in WWE on Sasha, culminating by that vile stomp to that chair around Sasha's neck. And just last week, as we watched Bayley brutally assault a still-recovering Sasha from behind at the Performance Center, as Bayley was probably inches away from re-injuring Sasha, potentially ending her career in the place where it began...we all saw the return of 'The Man.' We all saw you putting yourself in a potentially dangerous situation to save a woman who, just last year, you had some brutal wars with in this ring, particularly that classic Hell in a Cell match. So I suppose the question is: why now? Why return now, and why for Sasha Banks?"

Becky had figured that would be the question he'd ask. She subtly motioned for Cole to give her space, to which he complied, scooting to the far end of the ring so she could have the time to address that burning question.

"A lot has changed here since I've been gone, hasn't it?" Becky gave a rueful smirk to the cameras. "I can't really say it's been all for the better. We're in a world now where instead of seeing the fans live and as they are, being able to reach out and touch them, hug their kids, give them hi-fives and see their signs, the best we can do is watch them from home because we want them to be safe, and we should. We're in a world now where the WWE women's division is completely up-ended. Over on Raw, we have Charlotte Flair, my old nemesis-slash-punching-bag out on injury, who knows when she'll be back thanks to that tubby goon Nia Jax. We have the Raw Women's Champion Asuka who, bless her heart, nobody can understand a word she's saying half the time. And you have those two planks Nia and Shayna Baszler holding the tag titles just waiting for the opportunity to stab one another in the back. And then here on Smackdown, you have Alexa Bliss walking around in a trance or something while going ga-ga over a monster, we got Lacey Evans still walking about pretending it's 1945 again for whatever reason...and the only real saving grace has been someone that I have had a long and very complicated history with. I'm of course talking about Sasha Banks."

The fire-haired Irish beauty gave a small laugh. "You know, right from the start, when I met that girl years ago, I could just tell that there was something special about her. It was weird, some people laughed at me when I said it, because she was just this skinny little thing from Boston with a big toothy smile and kind of a lowkey, sexy nerd-type thing going on for her when we met. She wasn't the girl with the rich family history like Charlotte, she wasn't the cute blonde girl like Alexa Bliss and Summer Rae were, hell, she didn't even have a funny accent like Paige and I did. But when I looked in her eyes, I could see something. I saw a fire there, a drive to succeed that I hadn't seen in anyone else aside from maybe myself and Charlotte, hell, in a lot of ways it was even _more_ fierce in Sasha. Sure, we've had our ups and downs, we've been friends, we've been enemies, we've gone to war watching each other's backs and going at each other's throats. But through all of it, I have never, ever not respected her. And hell, I admit it, I have always admired her. She wasn't supposed to make it here, she wasn't supposed to have a chance, yet time and time again, she showed everyone, everyone who ever stepped in a ring with her and everyone who ever paid a ticket or paid a streaming service or TV service to see her, that her personal motto was no B.S. statement. Sasha Banks indeed was, and _still_ is, _**born**_ to do this."

Becky looked at the cameras again, as if trying to look right at Sasha from where she was watching at home. She smiled warmly, but her eyes were burning with a powerful will. "Sasha, I know you're watching this. And I think I speak for the entire WWE universe when I say this: We love you, and we miss you in this ring. You get well, and you get well soon so you can come back and remind us why they all call you 'The Boss.'"

The canned applause made Becky cringe a little inwardly, but the sight of the fans at home clapping and cheering for Sasha from their homes on the screens of the Thunderdome made her smile.

Becky's smile fell for a moment as she began to get down to business. The entire reason why she was here. "And then, there's the matter of the current Smackdown Women's Champion, Bayley. Who…"

Suddenly, the sound of "Deliverance" echoed through the building, heralding the arrival of Bayley. The smirk on her face was ever-present, Bayley holding that damn dented chair in her hand.

 _The same one she'd been using to attack Sasha for the last few weeks_ , Becky realized in anger.

Bayley had even stopped to do that damn pyro part of her entrance, to Becky's everlasting annoyance.

"Becky, Becky, Becky," Bayley began, shaking her head before breaking out into an obviously sarcastic cheer. "Hey, look, everyone, it's 'The _Maaan_!' _**YAAAAAY**_! It's been so long, Becky, welcome back, you look GREAT! And, ooh, look at that, you're all pregnant! Aww, isn't that adorable?"

Becky tensed up at the mention of her pregnancy, but she kept her body language calm, her facial features cool. She had been preparing for this exact moment for a week. And she had a little surprise for Bayley if she decided to get any ideas of getting physical with Becky.

"Yeah, yeah, it is adorable, Bayley. That's kind of what I think every time you try to pass off that Karen hairdo as fashionable, but that's alright," Becky quipped sharply.

Bayley's brown eyes darkened for a moment as she registered that jab, but let it go quickly as she made her way down to the ring. "Oh, ha ha ha! Isn't that funny? The Man's got jokes. Always the _entertainer_ , aren't ya, Becks?"

Becky kept her composure calm, her smile icy. Summoning every unflappable cell of 'The Man' that she could muster. "Yeah, do me a favor? Don't call me 'Becks'. My friends call me that. And you're not on that list, Bayley, not anymore," Becky replied coolly.

"I'm not?" Bayley asked in mock surprise and hurt.

Disgusted, Becky shook her head at the champion. "No, you're not. Not after what you've done."

"Well, gee, Becky, that just makes me sad. And why's that, Becky? Huh? What exactly have I done?" Bayley asked, that cold, condescending look on her face emerging. "Make history? Step out from under the shadows of you, Sasha and Charlotte? Take this division by the throat and make it my own? Hold this title longer than you ever did?" Bayley flashed another cruel smirk as she climbed the metal steps into the ring. "Or maybe it's just finally taking out the trash when I finally, _finally_ rid myself of that useless waste of space that is, well, _was_ Sasha Banks when I ended her career with my own hands? Well, and with the help of this here steel chair…" Bayley held up the chair, stared at each of the rough dents in it almost reverently, like a musician eying her favorite instrument. _Or a serial killer admiring some morbid trophy case_ , Becky thought in disgust. "I can tell you each and every one of the stories behind those dents. Each place I used it on Sasha. Heh...sometimes when I touch each dent, I can remember _exactly_ how she screamed in that moment."

The anger that flared in Becky at the memory of watching Bayley stomp brutally on that chair around Sasha's neck, attacking Sasha from behind last week, made her thumb twitch and her teeth grind against each other, but Becky forced herself to keep a cool smile. She knew she couldn't give Bayley any ammunition with letting her know how much that attack had gotten under Becky's skin.

Bayley finally ducked under the rope and got in the ring. Leaving them finally in the ring at last.

The Man and the Role Model.

Face to face.

Like two gunslingers at a high noon showdown out west.

"You remember a chair like this, don't you, Becky?" Bayley flashed the redhead an infuriating, baiting smile.

Her eyes, Becky noted, had the tint of madness in them, and that made Becky's free hand drift a little inside her trench coat and clutch that secret equalizer a little tighter.

Bayley's voice snapped her out of her brief musings. "After all, I once took a chair like this last year and turned it on you, slamming it down into your back _time after time after time._ Looking back on it, it's funny, but I think that's really the moment when I started to become the Role Model I am today, by cutting loose all the dead weight from the past. I remember it very well. But since I heard my name come out of your mouth, and since you interfered in business that didn't concern you last week, I guess you probably forgot just exactly what I'm capable of, haven't you, Mommy Dearest? And with so much... _precious_...cargo you're carrying nowadays." Bayley's eyes drifted towards the unborn child in Becky's stomach, a twisted, dark look overtaking them.

If Becky had actual claws, she'd have lunged for Bayley's throat right now and ripped her throat out, windpipe, jugular and all. She felt her boiling hot Irish temper dangerously close to snapping, felt the temptation to whip out her equalizer and knock Bayley into the next lifetime. But she bit hard on her tongue, forced the ice water into her veins...and waited for her moment.

"In fact, I'm told you have a little girl there waiting, Becky," Bayley gave her a dark smile. "I don't think we've properly been introduced yet, your little baby girl and I. Let's fix that, shall we? Come here...come on over here and _give Auntie Bayley a hug_."

An evil look in her eyes, Bayley, chair still in hand, began to slowly walk over to the pregnant Becky….

...only to stop dead in her tracks when a stunned Bayley found her neck being inches from Becky's quickly-whipped -out equalizer: a long, deadly, metal-colored, aluminum bat.

Becky's hazel eyes flashed with a mix of steel and maternal fury. The bared teeth in her dangerous smile were like that of a wolf, ferocious and lethal.

The redhead's voice was still calm, but had an icy threat underlying every syllable as her steely hazel eyes locked with Bayley's surprised brown irises. "Let's get one thing straight right now, ya little freak, and I'm only going to say this once. _Keep my unborn daughter's name outta yer mouth_. You will _never_ be 'Auntie Bayley' to my child. And if you _ever_ come near my kid again, if I even hear you speak or tweet a single word about her, I _promise_ you...not even a dentist will be able to identify your body once I'm done with ya. _Got that_?"

Bayley, her smile gone, slightly backed away, trying to get some distance between them. But Becky mirrored her every step, not letting that happen. And before Bayley knew it, she found herself forced into a corner of the ring, her back pressed against the turnbuckles while a still-smiling Becky held that metal bad so dangerously close to her throat.

"Okay, Becky...take it easy. I was just messing around, c'mon…" Bayley began to reason with her.

But Becky was not in the mood to be reasoned with. Her voice was a feral snarl. "Drop that damned chair. _Now_. Or I drop you."

Hesitantly, Bayley let the chair drop to the mat. Becky's head subtly ticked to the outside of the ring, motioning Bayley to place that chair out of her reach. Not liking the idea of being without her weapon, but not having a real choice, Bayley slowly used her foot to nudge the chair to the outside.

Satisfied, Becky slowly backed away, keeping her eyes on Bayley the entire time as she returned to the center of the ring.

"Now then," Becky said, lowering her bat to her side and a polite smile returning to her face. "Let's talk like civilized people, yeah? Friendly chat, just between us gals?"

Still wary, but curious, Bayley let her scowl return as she slowly returned back to the center of the ring. Eye to eye, face to face with one of her former surrogate sisters.

"I'm actually glad you came down here, Bayley," Becky continued. "Not because I like you being near me, I don't. But the entire purpose of me taking time out of a busy pregnancy and doctor's visits was so I could actually see you. Face to face."

She walked another step or two closer to Bayley so that the two women were only a foot apart. Becky shook her head in disappointment at the brunette. "I wanted to look into those beady little eyes of yours and ask you if you're proud of yourself. I wanted to ask you just what kind of person you were to do what you did to Sasha. You were her best friend. You meant the world to her, Bayley. That girl cared about you, she was there for you for _everything_ , the highs, the lows, the good, the bad, all of it, and you threw it all away, and for _what_? Just to parade around a little longer with the belt that _I_ made famous?"

Bayley let out a derisive snort, and Becky just wanted to take that bat and swat her across the mouth.

"Oh, so now _you're_ gonna lecture me about throwing friendships away? Hmm, let's see, who was it that turned their back on Charlotte two years ago over this same title I have now?" Bayley mockingly tapped her chin in thought. "Uh, _ding-dong_ , right, it was **you** , Becky! Don't act like you're so high and mighty now when I know who you really are. How you became 'The Man' in the first place. You realized that Charlotte was giving you the raw end of the deal on your friendship, coasting to a title match that you had to fight and scratch and claw for, and you finally cut her loose. The only difference between us is that unlike you, _I_ was smart enough to see what was happening with Sasha beforehand, and instead of waiting for the knife to get shoved in my back, _I_ struck _first_."

Becky's mouth formed a stiff line at the mention of Charlotte, their long tumultuous history and rivalry flickering in her mind. "That was different."

Bayley let out a scornful laugh. "It always is when I'm compared with you three, wasn't it? I was always the exception, no, sorry, make it the _outcast_ in our little group, wasn't I? The Four Horsewomen of NXT. The pioneers of the Women's Revolution. The foundation of the entire women's division as we know it today. And this bullcrap story about us being this tight knit little group, this Sisterhood of the Traveling Ring Shorts, or whatever. Charlotte, the Chosen One. Sasha, the Sexy One. Becky, the Tough One. And then there was me...I was just the _other_ one, right? The kid sister of the group? The Skipper to your Barbies?" Bayley's eyes darkened in anger and long-held resentment. "The _**runt**_ , right? That's what Charlotte called me. A tiny, useless, little _runt_. And you and Sasha laughed so much over that stupid nickname. Like it was a joke to all of you. Like _I_ was a joke to all of you."

"Oh, cut the pity party crap, Bayley!" Becky snapped, shaking her head at the former little sister of their group. "Nobody ever called you a joke. You were never a joke to us. If you were, we'd never have taken you seriously as we did, we'd never have let you into our circle the way we did, into our _lives_ the way we did. If I had known that calling you 'runt' bothered you so much, I would have told Charlotte to stop. And if it hurt your feelings, then fine...I apologize, I'm sorry."

Becky said those words sincerely, her hazel eyes becoming just a little warmer as she tried to search for even a little part of the smiling, happy kid Bayley was when she met her years ago.

"But that nickname was never meant to make fun of you. We gave you that name because we _loved_ you, Bayley. You were our little sister, we _adored_ you, we wanted to _protect_ you. All the time we spent down there in the Performance Center, trying to make a name for ourselves, trying to reach an impossible dream, we did all of that together. You, me, Sasha and Charlotte. We trained together. We came up together. We fought together, we _bled_ together, we cried and laughed and traveled and _sang_ together. Through the good times and the bad, we were _always_ there for each other. We were all we had, it was us versus the world, and we had each other's backs. Do you remember _none_ of that?"

For a moment, Becky saw a brief flicker of emotion in Bayley's eyes, and she briefly hoped, at least a part of her did, that somewhere in this angry, bitter young woman was the old, happy, innocent Bayley. But just as quickly as that emotion surfaced in Bayley's eyes, it drowned again, leaving behind the cynical, jaded gaze of the self-professed 'Role Model'.

Becky shook her head in disbelief. How had she not seen that rage in Bayley before in all these years? How had she not seen that anger? How did she and Sasha miss that?

"The only thing I remember was feeling cold," Bayley replied, bitterly. "Cold being left in your shadows. Passed over for _everything_. Charlotte got all the title shots, Sasha got all the attention and the praise for her matches and the interviews, you got the damned main event of _WrestleMania_ , and what did I get? _Huh_? Did any of you reach out to help me get out of sliding down the card the last two years? Or fighting those wastes of space the Riott Squad fifty times in a year? No, of course not. Charlotte was too busy looking down on everyone from her imaginary throne, you were too busy becoming female Stone Cold Steve Austin and Sasha was too busy snapping Instagram photos and posting cryptic tweets to pay me any mind. And I used to wonder why, hell, I used to cry myself to sleep at nights on the road sometimes over it. And then it all hit me. It couldn't be any clearer….you were all jealous of me."

Becky blinked, offended. " _Excuse_ me?"

But Bayley did not back down. "You _heard_ me! You're jealous of me, all of you. Because in this ring, I'm better than _all_ of you! I'm more experienced than Charlotte, I'm not as fragile and weak as Sasha, and unlike you, Becky, I don't have a stupid accent! I always had all the tools to be the top woman in this industry, and you all saw that, and it drove you all insane with jealousy, so what did you do? You all held me down, you all held me back, you all used your pull and your influence to try and keep me away from taking what was rightfully mine. That's why you all conspired to keep me in NXT while the three of you were introduced all at once to Raw, like shining lights in the sky to introduce a new era, while I was left to rot down in Florida with the rest of the left-behinds—"

"Alright, alright, I've had enough of this _bullsh_ * _t_!" Becky interrupted, exasperated. How could Bayley be this delusional? "Is _that_ what you really think? That _we're_ the reason why you weren't called up back in 2015 along with the rest of us?"

Bayley's reply was firm, instantaneous. "That's _exactly_ what I think."

Becky let out a sardonic laugh of her own. She knew Sasha wasn't going to be happy with her for what she was about to say, but Becky decided right then and there that she would deal with those consequences later. It was about high time for someone to knock Bayley off this pedestal that she put herself on, and Becky decided that someone was going to be her.

"Well, rise and shine, sweetheart, because you're in for a rude awakening. We didn't tell you this because I swore to Sasha that I'd never say a word about it to you. But now that you've become this self-deluded _plank_ , it's time for you to learn the truth. And the truth is this. The reason why you weren't called up with the rest of us in 2015 was because management wanted to _**fire**_ you right after SummerSlam!"

She saw the smug look on Bayley's face drop to one of surprise, shock, and, if one looked closer...one of hurt.

"What, Bayley, cat got your tongue?" Becky prodded, smugly.

And while Becky admitted that most of her felt really damn good about that, there was this one damned part of her that still felt just a little bit bad for Bayley. Or rather, for the girl that Bayley used to be.

"That's a lie." Bayley said that quietly, but with such an uncharacteristic smallness in her voice, so different from the boisterous facade she put on as The Role Model. As if she wasn't so sure that what Becky said was indeed a lie.

Becky saw that and she went in even deeper. "No, it's not. Why do you think we were all called up while you weren't? One month before the second biggest pay per view of the year, which is around the same time management likes to trim the fat on the rosters? Don't you think that was just a little suspicious? I did. Sasha did, that's why she started asking around. And imagine our surprise when we found out the truth. Management had nothing for you, Bayley. They had no plans for you, you were on the road to nowhere as far as they were concerned. They didn't see any money in you, any potential in you, they didn't like your look, they just didn't think you were worth keeping around. Bottom line: they didn't think you were good enough to succeed. So they were going to wait until after SummerSlam and then just quietly let you go. Just like that, it would have been over for you. Your career, your dream, would have died right then and there."

The doubts played across Bayley's face, and Becky realized that her message was starting to get through.

"Except it didn't, and you know why? Because Sasha asked them _not_ to. She had to beg them, _**beg**_ them, to give you another chance. And so did I. We spent days outside of so many offices, trying to talk to whoever would listen to see if we could save your career. She asked to work with you a little longer to put the two of you in a match together for the NXT women's championship at 'NXT Takeover: Brooklyn', and after a lot of arm-twisting, Sasha got them to agree. And you remember what happened next, right, Bayley? You two went on to have probably the greatest women's match in the _history_ of this company. All this time, you probably thought it was just magic between you two that night, and maybe that was part of it. But she fought like hell and brought out the very **best** in you because she wasn't just fighting for a championship that night. She was trying to save your professional life. She was going all out for you, for _you_ , because she knew, she just **knew** that you would have done the same for her. Because that's what family does for each other."

And it was all true. Becky knew that. She remembered her and Sasha being blown off by one executive and one agent after another in the quest to save Bayley's career back then. And she remembered how determined Sasha was to keep going until they succeeded. For years, Sasha had sworn Becky to secrecy on the matter, begged her not to say anything to Bayley, fearing that the truth would be too much for their sweet surrogate little sister. That she couldn't handle it. That it would break her already fragile confidence.

In some ways, Becky still wished she didn't have to do it. It was hard for someone, especially someone as emotionally fragile as Bayley, to come face to face with their doubts and fears. To have them validated. But Becky realized that all this protecting that Sasha had been doing for Bayley had helped create this monster. So it was time for Bayley to realize the real truth, and Becky had no problems pulling back on that curtain.

She could see that the truth had shaken Bayley, left her face hanging slack, her eyes clouded in doubt. Bayley's voice was a quiet muttering. "No. No, it's not true...it can't be...that's all a lie."

A moment...then Bayley laughed. Harshly. "Nice try. You almost had me with that yarn you were spinning, Becky. But that isn't the Sasha Banks you and I know. The real Sasha Banks is a selfish, spoiled, glory-hogging, spotlight-chasing _bitch_ who couldn't stand it when her so-called 'little sister', the _runt_ , managed to get the spotlight by herself. She wouldn't lift a finger to help me except to grab the knife to stab me in the back. Friends like her and friends like you and that other two-faced bitch Charlotte I don't need. As long as I have _this_..." she motioned to the blue and gold championship belt on her waist. "That's all the friendship I need. A wise man told me once that I can make friends, or I can make money. Well, after seeing the kind of friendship the three of you had to offer, just show me the money because that's the only friendship worth a damn in this business."

Becky looked at Bayley like a disappointed mother would at her child. And she was truly disappointed in Bayley. Becky thought she had known her. She had thought she was better than this. But she was wrong about Bayley. Sasha was wrong. They all were.

Becky shook her head. Her voice was quiet, barely above a whisper, but had a sharp, accusing edge to it. "She loved you."

Bayley scowled. "No she didn't."

Becky's voice got a single octave louder. " _I_ loved you."

The Role Model's voice was a poisonous hiss. "That's a _lie_."

But 'The Man' pressed on, her voice getting louder, a note of pain and accusation in it. "You were like a _sister_ to us."

Bayley shook her head vehemently. "Shut up!"

Becky's anger, her frustration, for Sasha, for herself, finally came boiling up to the surface. "We were your _family_ , Bayley, _**how could you do this**_?"

"YOU ARE **NOT**! **MY**! _**FAMILY**_!"

Bayley screamed those words, her throbbing veins becoming visible in her neck. Her eyes were wild, mad with rage. And for a second, Becky had to force herself not to flinch or backpedal at the venom in the voice of the increasingly unstable champion.

Bayley gave her a bitter look, her eyes somewhat glassy with emotion, but too tainted with fury for it to matter. "I didn't need your love. I didn't need your protection, I didn't even _want_ it! What I wanted was your _**respect**_! What I wanted was your _validation_! I just wanted to be given the same place at the table that you three were! Not as the little kid sister, or the runt, or the left-behind that couldn't look after herself, but as your peer. As your _equal_. That's _all_ I ever wanted from _any of you_!" Bayley let out a bitter chuckle, shaking her head tiredly. "But that's never gonna happen, is it? I'm always going to be 'The Runt' in your eyes, aren't I? Well, screw that and screw you, Becky! And screw Charlotte and _especially_ screw Sasha! I don't need her, I never did. I won Money in the Bank without Sasha. I became the longest reigning Smackdown Women's Champion of all time without Sasha—"

"Really? That same title that you only retained for so long _because_ of Sasha?" Becky cut her off, harshly.

Then 'The Man' let out a sardonic laugh of her own. "You must've deleted it from your memory, but I've lost count of how many times you walked away from a title match with a victory all because of Sasha. How many times you were getting your arse kicked in title defenses against people who had your number only for Sasha to save your title. You know what your problem is, Bayley? You've held that title for so long that you're starting to believe your own hype. And hey, I hold the record for being the longest reigning Raw Women's Champion of all time, so I know what it's like to walk around with a bit of confidence and swagger. But here's the real difference between you and me, honey: I didn't need help from anyone to break my records. I didn't _want_ help. I won the Royal Rumble on one leg, by myself. I beat Charlotte and the so-called 'Baddest Woman on the Planet' Ronda Rousey at the same time, by myself. In a _classic_ Hell in a Cell match with Sasha Banks, that same woman you called a 'useless waste of space', we tore down the house, she took me to my limit and yet I walked away by the skin of my teeth as the winner, _by myself_. But you? All this time, Sasha was coddling you. _Protecting_ you. Putting aside her own career aspirations for you, for _**you**_ , because you were like a sister to her and she loved you _so damn much_. But the truth is this. Sasha was right last week, Bayley. You _ARE_ nothing without her."

Bayley shook her head, not wanting to hear that. "No."

" _Yes_." Becky gave her a nasty grin, pressing on the wound of Bayley's fragile ego, the one she always knew was there. "You were nothing before she came along and you're nothing now. No, you're less than nothing after what you did to her. And it's not because you're not talented, because you are. It's not because you don't have the desire, because you do. But the cold hard reality of it is this, Bayley—you are not as good as you _think_ you are. Because as good as you've become, I know the truth, Sasha knows the truth, Charlotte knows the truth, everyone in the back knows the truth and everyone in the world knows it. And the truth is that while you are good, Bayley, _real_ good, Sasha Banks is simply... _ **better**_...than you."

The redhead saw The Role Model's eyes flash again, a mix of rage and doubt in them. Silently, she deftly slipped her bat-holding hand into the pocket of her trench coat and pressed a button on her phone. And all the while, Becky's keen eyes never left Bayley.

"And deep down, Bayley...you know that's true." Becky chuckled coldly, scratching and pecking at the wounds in Bayley's fragile ego. "You know, you've _always_ known, how much better she is than you, how _special_ Sasha is in this ring, how you had to work twice as hard to be half as good as she is, and it just _**kills**_ you inside, doesn't it? You can't _stand_ it. It eats at your soul each and every day, it drives you absolutely insane—"

"Sasha is NOT! _**BETTER**_! **THAN ME!** " Bayley snarled hotly at her former friend. Her hand on the microphone trembles just a little bit, Becky noticed.

Taking a quick huff of breath, Bayley's jaw was clenched tightly as she practically seethed into the mic. "But you're right, it's the thought of everyone _thinking_ that she is that drives me crazy. I've heard that my entire career. How _Sasha's_ the prettier one, how _Sasha's_ the better wrestler, how much _sexier_ she is, how her matches are _so much better_ than mine. It made me sick to my stomach and it drove me _insane_!"

She then let a cruel smirk that Orton would have been proud of slither across her lips as she eyed Becky. "But let me ask you this: Where's Sasha _now_ , huh? Sitting at home, probably crying like a little stupid kid with a boo-boo as she's watching this, planning out her retirement plans thanks to me. I ended Sasha Banks's career with my bare hands, just like I ended Kairi Sane's. I broke 'The Boss'. And now I never have to hear her stupid theme music ever again, I never have to look at that stupid blue hair of hers again, I never have to listen to Michael Cole shouting 'It's Boss Time!' at the commentary booth like some kind of idiot, and I don't have to waste another second _pretending_ to be her friend. I'm done with Sasha Banks, and from now on, 'Boss Time' is over, and it's all about 'Bayley Time'. And if that's all you have to say to me, then the champ is done wasting my time here talking to you, Becky. I have a title match this Sunday at Clash of Champions with that other loser Nikki Cross to get ready for. Have fun with the child labor, and tell Sasha…" Bayley wickedly grinned. "... _them's the breaks_."

Becky felt her rage spike within her at that last parting shot about Sasha's injuries. But as Bayley began to turn her back to her and leave the ring, Becky was determined not to let the cracked brunette get the last word in.

And she knew exactly how to get Bayley's attention.

"Hey... _ **hey, hey, hey**_ , I'm not done with you yet, get your lumpy arse back here, _**runt**_."

Sure enough, the use of Bayley's old nickname worked, freezing the champion in mid-motion just as she was about to step through the ropes. Seething, Bayley whirled around and stalked right up to Becky until they were face to face, practically nose to nose.

"Don't... _ **CALL**_ _me that_!" Bayley furiously barked at the Irish badass. "I am _**not**_ a _runt_! I'm Bayley, I am a role model, I'm the longest reigning Smackdown Women's Champion in history and you will address me with the respect I _deserve_!"

But Becky didn't flinch. In fact, she smiled. Flashed a cool, calculated grin that became so trademark for 'The Man', ever cool in the face of danger. "You said it was now 'Bayley Time'. Really? Is that what you think? Let me ask you something, Bayley. You claim to know Sasha so well, better than anyone—"

Bayley nodded vigorously. " _Anyone_!"

Becky chuckled and shook her head again. "Right, right. But if we're talking about the same woman, the one that I know pretty well, too, let me ask you this...do you _really_ think that she's just going to sit back and ride off into the sunset after what you did? Do you really think that she would just let you walk around claiming to be the one who ended her career? Do you really think that she's the type of girl who'd let that go without a response? Do you really think that as long as there was a breath in her body, a pulse in her veins, that she wouldn't be coming for you with every ounce of fire, every drop of anger, every last bit of the hate she has in her heart now? If you thought any of that was true...then maybe you don't know Sasha Banks as well as you thought you did."

She saw doubt once again surface in Bayley's eyes. Doubt, and a hint of fear.

Dread.

Becky gave her an ominous smirk. "But _I_ do. And trust me, she is _pissed_ at you. You are all she thinks about. And it's driving her. Fueling her every moment so that she can train and focus on one thing—payback. She's angry, she's dangerous...and she's coming. And she will be coming for you, Bayley. You won't know when...you won't know where...you won't know how...but she _will_ come for you. And when she does...I almost feel sorry for you, because she's going to make sure you're going to pay for _every single thing_ you ever did. And believe me, it won't be quick...and it sure as hell won't be pretty."

Like a shark closing in on its prey, Becky began to slowly circle Bayley. Watched as the implications of her words began to sink into the increasingly rattled brunette's mind. Her words were measured carefully, each one calculated.

"You can run, Bayley...You can hide...you can dodge...but in the end, it won't matter. You can't stop it. She's coming...and she's coming to _end_ you. Not your title reign. Not your career. _You_ , Bayley. The only reason, the _only_ reason why I'm not taking this bat and breaking every single bone in your body after you threatened me and mine is because your life isn't mine to take…"

Deftly, Becky slipped her hand back into her pocket, got her phone out and pressed it right in Bayley's right ear. "….it's _hers_."

And then, Bayley heard it.

Coming from the microphone on the phone.

A single, solitary, quiet snarl of a voice.

" _I'm coming for you,_ _ **bitch**_ _."_

Bayley practically jumped out of her skin as she recoiled backwards. That voice... _Sasha_?

Looking as if she had seen a ghost, Bayley could only stare in awe at Becky, who merely gave her an icy glare and a knowing smirk as her theme music hit and she stepped under the ropes, 'The Man' leaving the ring without so much as a glance behind her.

In Becky's wake back in the ring, a stupefied and stunned Bayley shook her head, raking her free hand through her dark locks, subconsciously clutching her title belt a little bit tighter.

Her thoughts were a crazed whirlwind as her eyes darted around The Thunderdome. _No. No, it can't be. Sasha's gone. She's gone. I destroyed her. I made sure of that. She's not coming back. She can't come back. She just can't...right?_

_Right?_

* * *

**To Be Continued…**

* * *

**Next: Clash of Champions...a nasty surprise lies in wait for Bayley as Sasha prepares to take her quest for revenge to the next level. And Becky meets a...Fiendish...old foe...**

**Answers in the next chapter!**


End file.
